A Gran Canaria-born composer and experimental artist, a pioneer of electroacoustic music in Spain and founder of ZAJ.
Juan Hidalgo Codorniu was a composer and experimental artist, a pioneer of electroacoustic music in Spain and founder of Zaj.
Open biographyInstitutional sources place him as a central figure in Spanish sound experimentation. The Spanish National Library records him as a composer and artist linked to the avant-garde, while the Museo Reina Sofía presents him as a pioneer of experimental and electroacoustic music and as a founder of ZAJ. His career moved between composition, sound action, visual poetry and performance.
His importance lies in having expanded the Canarian musical map toward the avant-garde, linking Las Palmas de Gran Canaria with the electroacoustic and performative languages that transformed Spanish creation in the second half of the twentieth century.
The sources place him in a conceptual and experimental language, with pieces for action, object, recording and stage. His work moves between electroacoustic music, happenings, performance and the relationship between sound and image.
The repertoire documented here is selective: Ukanga, Concierto postal, Biozaj Apolíneo, Lanas, Piano republicano español and Verde, rojo o amarillo. The selection does not aim to close the full catalogue of his work.
His legacy is that of an essential reference for Spanish sound avant-garde, with a Canarian origin that expands the idea of Canarian music beyond folklore and song.
His connection to the Canaries runs through his birth in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and through the international projection of a body of work that places Canarian experimentation within European musical modernity.
Obra temprana citada por el Museo Reina Sofía en su archivo oral sobre la trayectoria de Juan Hidalgo.
Obra asociada al grupo ZAJ y documentada en las colecciones del Museo Reina Sofía.
Pieza de la colección del Museo Reina Sofía que ejemplifica su práctica entre música y acción conceptual.
Obra conservada en la colección del Museo Reina Sofía.
Nace en Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
El Museo Reina Sofía cita Ukanga como una obra temprana de su trayectoria experimental.
El Museo Reina Sofía sitúa en 1964 la fundación de ZAJ junto a Walter Marchetti y Ramón Barce.
El Museo Reina Sofía publica una entrevista centrada en su trayectoria artística y en ZAJ.
La Biblioteca Nacional de España registra su muerte en 2018.
