On October 12 and 13, Porgy&Bess in Vienna will present a two-day solo exhibition of my music.

The program for this solo exhibition is extremely rich and includes a world premiere and many Austrian premieres.

American marimba soloist Catlin Jones—performing in Europe for the first time—will play the Austrian premiere of my marimba solo piece Thinking Songs. Here is a video of this piece performed by marimbist Ji Hye Jung as a preview. The Mivos Quartet will play an older string quartet (Moving Houses, composed for the Kronos Quartet) and a newer one (Entasis). The Ensemble Hopper is traveling from my new home* Belgium with three works, Six Arpeggiators (Austrian premiere), the world premiere of the revised version of Aquifères, and the Austrian premiere of the “one woman mini opera” La parole seule (libretto: François Emmanuel) with soprano Julie Vercauteren.

My New York collaborative trio Hypercolor with Eyal Maoz (guitar), James Ilgenfritz (bass), and me (drums) is coming to Vienna for the first time and will play music at the intersection of free jazz, prog, indie rock, and uncategorizable experimentation, and I will play a set of my solo music for the electronic “Marimba Lumina” (designed by Donald Buchla), which I have already presented in countless venues on six continents, but never in Vienna.

It would be difficult to present a more diverse overview of my music in two days. I look forward to sharing these sounds with you all!

(Incidentally, after the Vienna concerts, the entire ensemble will travel to Budapest, where the concerts will be repeated on October 14 and 15 at the Liszt Festival in the Budapest Music Center.) (Lukas Ligeti)

Lukas Ligeti's music unites a wide variety of musical inspirations and traditions, including the European avant-garde, African influences, jazz, and the spirit of New York’s experimental music scene. In so doing, he explores musical processes, complex polymetric structures, and possibilities of intercultural collaboration—many of his works are rooted in his deep engagement with the music of Africa. In demand as a drummer in the field of creative music, Lukas Ligeti has long worked with live electronics and has initiated numerous intercultural music projects. In 2023, he served as the artistic director of the first World New Music Days of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) to take place on the African continent.

The two concerts presented on the occasion of his 60th birthday highlight the wide-ranging spectrum of the composer and musician Lukas Ligeti, spanning the entire range from composition to improvisation.