Henry Kaiser and Lukas Ligeti, with Charles Amirkhanian

Floor Three, Susan and John Hess Family Theater

Henry and Lukas were originally introduced to each other in 1986, when Lukas’s father, György Ligeti, received the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in Louisville, Kentucky. At that time, the thirty-four-year-old Kaiser told the eighteen-year-old Ligeti that they would make a record together someday. This prediction has come true many times; Henry and Lukas have recorded together on a dozen occasions and have frequently performed live together in many different contexts. Something that the two share is a great love for the music of Conlon Nancarrow, whom they both knew personally. Henry was the production assistant for the WERGO recordings of Nancarrow’s complete works and thus heard all of Nancarrow’s rolls played on his Ampico pianos in his Mexico City studio. Lukas was the fly on the wall for many interactions between his father and Conlon. Both Henry and Lukas have been greatly influenced by Nancarrow in their own musical compositions and improvisations. For this special lecture-performance, they will discuss and illuminate this influence, illustrating it with concrete recorded examples as well as live demonstrations with their instruments. You will probably never find another guitarist and drummer who list Nancarrow as one of their primary inspirations.
—Henry Kaiser 

Part of Anywhere in Time: A Conlon Nancarrow Festival, co-curated by Dominic Murcott and Jay Sanders, Curator and Curator of Performance.

Tickets for this program are required, and include the cost of admission ($22 adults, $18 seniors, free for members). Due to limited capacity, visitors are strongly encouraged to purchase tickets in advance. Tickets may be purchased online until midnight the night before your visit, and in person the day of the event.