Lucas Niggli plays Walter de Maria Drums&Nature

Walter De Maria – Ocean Music & Cricket Music
Lucas Niggli Drums Solo

Commissioned by the Bechtler Foundation, the Swiss percussionist Lucas Niggli has re-examined Walter De Maria’s two rarely performed works, *Ocean Music* (1962) and *Cricket Music* (1964)  , for solo drum kit, and prepared a contemporary yet faithful arrangement of them.

Walter De Maria (1935–2013), one of the most significant figures in American Minimal and Land Art, began his artistic career as a musician. In the early 1960s, he played drums on the New York avant-garde scene and was at times part of Lou Reed’s early musical circle, which later evolved into The Velvet Underground. Shortly afterwards, De Maria decided to give up music in favour of the visual arts. He made art history with works such as *The Lightning Field*, *The New York Earth Room* and the monumental *The 2000 Sculpture*. The latter was exhibited at venues including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Kunsthaus Zürich, and is now on permanent display at the Bechtler Foundation in Uster – in a 500-square-metre, column-free exhibition space built specifically for it.

The two solo compositions, *Ocean Music* and *Cricket Music*, are among De Maria’s little-known musical works. For decades, the original audio tapes were considered lost, and the works were effectively no longer performable.

For this new version, sound designer Joschka Weiss reconstructed the lost audio tapes based on historical sources and technical research. Building on this reconstruction, Lucas Niggli developed an original interpretation for solo drum kit plus six-channel recorded accompaniment, which preserves De Maria’s experimental spirit whilst at the same time allowing it to be experienced anew from a contemporary perspective.

The revival of these extraordinary works brings together music, art and contemporary history, offering a rare insight into the early musical output of an artist whose visual art has made its mark on international art history.

The new version has already been presented at two festivals in 2025 to great public acclaim: at the Korsonor Festival in Geneva (August 2025) and at the Hinterhalt Festival in Uster. Both performances met with great interest and made it possible to experience these long-lost compositions live for the first time in decades.

With this project, the Bechtler Foundation not only honours Walter De Maria’s artistic legacy but also makes a hitherto little-known part of his oeuvre accessible once more. The collaboration between Lucas Niggli and Joschka Weiss combines historical reconstruction with contemporary interpretation, bringing two extraordinary works – situated at the intersection of sound art, performance and minimalism – to life in a new form.