Saturday, March 16, 2002
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center
3pm, FREE

Lukas Ligeti and Guests

On the occasion of the current exhibition on view at P.S.1, "The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994," a four-part series of musical performances takes place in the museum’s café space. This series points to the ways in which contemporary musicians in New York are working with African song, sound structures, instruments, and traditions. Each performance represents a "response" to the exhibition: the exhibition’s focus on contemporary African culture is extended to include a glipse at what Africa means to emerging New York composers and musicians.

The second event of the series features acclaimed composer and innovator Lukas Ligeti (electronic percussion) performing with a group of his collaborators: Mai Lingani (voice), Abdoulaye Diabaté (Buru Djoss) (voice, guitar), and Dafna Naphtali (voice, computer processing).

Lukas Ligeti’s solo electronic percussion music combines elements of traditional and experimental musics in original and innovative ways. Multiple meters and polyrhythms coexist with lush timbral landscapes and melodies that you will find yourself whistling long after the concert. During his incessant traveling over the past years and his numerous experiences working with traditional musicians, especially in Africa, Lukas has assembled a large library of sonic snapshots which he uses to take the drumming paradigm to heretofore unimagined areas.

Lukas and collaborator Maï will perform music centered around the combination of voice and electronics, integrating elements of and references to African traditions, electronica, improvisation, and contemporary composition. The music is also inspired by directions of contemporary African art, music and visual, many of which are currently on view at PS1. They will be joined by Dafna Naphtali, one of New York’s foremost improvisors, vocalists, and live electronics performers, and Abdoulaye "Buru Djoss" Diabaté, the outstanding Malian griot singer and guitarist who has become a mainstay of the local African Music scene through his work with his group Super Manding as well as Source, Mamadou Diabaté, and many others.

Biographies:

LUKAS LIGETI is active in a wide variety of musical areas. Born in Austria, he studied composition and jazz drums at the Vienna Music Academy and was a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s computer music research center. He has lived in New York City since 1998. Lukas has composed for groups such as the Kronos Quartet, Ensemble Modern, and Icebreaker; his music has also been performed by the London Sinfonietta, Orchestre National de Lyon, and many others at festivals worldwide. As a drummer, he has worked with Henry Kaiser, Michael Manring, Wadada Leo Smith, John Tchicai, Elliott Sharp, Pyrolator Kurt Dahlke, Bruce Eisenbeil, Thurston Moore, Jim O’Rourke, Ned Rothenberg, Benoît Delbecq, Pamela Z, Gianni Gebbia, and many other improvisers and jazz musicians. He frequently performs solo on electronic percussion. Commissioned by the Goethe Institute, he first traveled to Côte d’Ivoire in 1994; this led to the founding of the cross-cultural experimental ensemble Beta Foly, which has since performed widely in West Africa and Europe. In 1997, he participated in a project involving the Batonka, a little-known people from Zimbabwe, and in 1999, he collaborated with the Nubian percussion ensemble Al Tubul, performing at the Cairo Opera. In 2000, he produced Maï Lingani’s debut album in Burkina Faso, and was commissioned by the American Composers Forum’s Continental Harmony project to compose a piece for an ensemble of Caribbean musicians in Miami.

MAI LINGANI was born in Koudougou, Burkina Faso and moved to Côte d’Ivoire at a young age. She studied theater and dance at the Institut National de l’Art et de l’Action Culturel in Abidjan and worked with several well-known bands in Côte d’Ivoire, touring nationally. In 1996, she joined Beta Foly, the ensemble founded by Lukas Ligeti and musicians resident in Abidjan, and participated in the recording of their album Lukas Ligeti & Beta Foly. Thereafter, she relocated to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, where she quickly established herself as one of the most talented singers of her country. In 1998, she was awarded the Prix National de la Chanson Moderne Burkinabè, the most important music award in Burkina Faso. She has performed and recorded with Burkina’s best-known artists and is widely known there due to her frequent television appearances, both as a soloist and as a backup singer. She has also collaborated with filmmaker Fanta Régina Nacro, providing music for several of her films, amongst which A Close-Up on Bintou, which has been seen, and won prizes, at numerous film festivals worldwide. Currently, Maï is in residence in New York City as a guest of the Exploding Music collective to collaborate with Lukas Ligeti and other New York artists.

Singer, sound artist/improvsior and composer DAFNA NAPHTALI was born and raised in New York City. She has performed an eclectic mix of music since she began singing and playing guitar as a teenager—folk, gospel, rock, and jazz—in Europe, the U.S., Israel and Russia. She studied bel canto voice and has performed, recorded or otherwise collaborated with José Halac, Joshua Fried, Lisa Karrer/David Simons, Lynn Book, Kathleen Supové and sarodist Stephen James, and co-leads the digital chamber punk ensemble What is it Like to be a Bat? with Kitty Brazelton. She often performs and composes using her own custom software for sound processing of voice and other instruments in venues and festivals in New York, Germany, Canada and Holland with Bat and with her improvised projects {kaleid-o-phone} and Mechanique(s). She currently teaches and consults at Harvestworks and at New York University, where she earned her BM (voice) and MM (Music Technology).

ABDOULAYE DIABATÉ, also known as Buru Djoss, was born in 1956 in Kela, Mali. Raised in the heart of the Mandé tradition from a long line of djelis (griots), he has also spent some twenty years performing contemporary and popular music, and his musical career has led him to a fusion of these styles. In 1973, he joined Tenetemba Jazz in Bamako, Mali and then became the lead singer of the Koulé Star Band of Koutiala. In 1975, he moved to Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire where he formed his own twelve-piece band, Super Mandé. In this band some of the greatest luminaries of West African music circulated as members: Salif Keita, Mory Kanté, Kanté Manfila, Ousmane Kouyaté and others. In 1992, Abdoulaye joined Les Ballets Koteba, led by Souleymane Koli, as a singer and guitarist . Since coming to America he has been an active member of the East Coast African music scene as a free-lance singer/guitarist, with his group Super Mandé, as well as with Source and other ensembles.

Please refer to www.ps1.org/cut/short/programs.html for all Short Century programs and events.

For more information, please contact anthony huberman at 718.784.2084 ext.[star]824 or anthony@ps1.org