Jorge Peixinho: four artistic research proposals

Abstract

Jorge Peixinho (1940-1995) was a Portuguese composer at the forefront of the avant-garde musical movement from the second half of the twentieth century. His works catalogue, elaborated by Delgado, Machado and Machado (2002), was consulted as the main source for the identification of 21 guitar works, composed over a period of 24 years (1971 to 1994). Aiming to raise awareness of these largely unknown works and to uncover unexplored possibilities that Peixinho’s music might offer to guitarists, this communication presents four artistic research proposals, conceived as new ways to play Jorge Peixinho on guitar. Three of these proposals resource to technology to enlarge the role of solo guitar on Peixinho’s works, namely Harmónicos I (1967), Sine Nomine (1987) and Nuno Peixoto de Pinho’s LLOCK (2012), which was crafted from Peixinho’s L’ Oiseau-Lyre (1982) and Cantos de Sophia (1990). The fourth proposal consists of a new original composition for solo guitar, entitled Jorge Peixinho - In Memoriam (2021), which is intended as an homage to the composer, containing citations from diverse Peixinho’s guitar works.