Juan Hidalgo Codorniu

Juan Hidalgo Codorniu (Las Palmas, Canary Islands, 1927) is a Spanish contemporary composer.

After studying piano and composition in Barcelona and Paris with Nadia Boulanger and Bruno Maderna, in 1957 participates in the XII Internationale Ferienkurse Für Neue Musik festival in Darmstadt with his work "Ukanga", a serial-structural composition for five chamber ensembles. With this piece, Hidalgo becomes the first Spanish composer to take part in the Darmstadt festival. In 1958 Juan Hidalgo met in Darmstadt American composers John Cage and David Tudor who were crucial to his musical and career development.

Founder in 1964 of the ZAJ group with Walter Marchetti, Ramón Barce, and later Esther Ferrer and the writer José Luis Castillejo. ZAJ was a brave exponent of Spanish neodadaism with influences of zen and Marcel Duchamp vision of the arts. It is very interesting to pay attention to the similarities in philosophy and aesthetics between ZAJ and the Japanese Gutai and American Fluxus artistic movements.

In 1966 he was with Gustav Metzger, Otto Muehl, Wolf Vostell, Hermann Nitsch and others a participant of the Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS) in London.

One of his most interesting collaborations with John Cage took place in 1978 when Cage and fellow composer Walter Marchetti prepared a musical ride on a train, full of microphones, monitors and sounds directed by Cage himself. The people on board would hear the train's very noises enriched by an additional mix of local music and sounds, giving an audio-portrait of each stop.

Juan Hidalgo is considered as one of the most creative artists of the Spanish avant-garde since the 60’s and he has been active in other artistic fields such as poetry, photography, installation art, postcard art, print media, and performances, participating in numerous international exhibitions and festival.

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