JORGE ANTUNES is a retired professor at University of Brasilia, where he is currently a Senior Researcher, working in the Graduate Department of Music. He joined the Music Department of Brasilia University in 1973. He is a conductor and composer of national and international recognition, and his name is an entry in the most important encyclopedias (Larousse, Grover’s, etc). He is a leader of the Brazilian vanguard in the field of contemporary classical music and as a precursor of electroacoustic music in Brazil. His name is registered in Aurélio and Houaiss Dictionaries, in the chromatic music entry, as creator of this esthetic current.

Antunes did postdoctoral studies at UPIC Ateliers in Paris, in a research project led by Iannis Xenakis and Claude Lévis Strauss. He holds a PhD in Aesthetics from the Sorbonne, Université de Paris VIII. His Master’s degree was made at the Torcuato Di Tella Institute in Buenos Aires, under the guidance of Umberto Eco and Alberto Ginastera. He has three bachelors, by the University of Brazil, current UFRJ: Physics (FNFi), Composition and Conducting (ENM) and Violin (ENM). He was a Researcher and Visiting Professor of the Sonology Institute of the University of Utrecht, Netherlands, of the Université de Paris VIII, Sorbonne, France, of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales de l’ORTF, France, and of the University of Aveiro, Portugal.

He has always had intense cultural and political activity, since his student days in Rio de Janeiro, leading or participating in important movements in recent Brazilian history: Strike of the One Third (1962); Motion Poem-Process (1967); Movimento das Diretas-Já, with his famous Symphony of Horns (1984); National Alternative Anthem, in the Constituent Assembly (1988); A Minute of Peace (against the invasion of Iraq by the USA) (2003) etc.

As administrator he was projected in the cultural media when he was president of the Ordem dos Músicos do Brasil, in the first elected director of the organ after the end of the intervention of the military dictatorship. As an ecologist he was founder and first president of the Sociedade Amigos da Biosfera (Sabio) (Friends of the Biosphere Society). Has won several international awards.

In 2002 he received the title of Honorary Citizen of Brasília, of the Legislative Assembly, and the title of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, of the French government. He is a member elected for life of the Brazilian Academy of Music, occupant of the chair No. 22.

His catalog includes more than 300 compositions written for the most diverse formations: orchestra, operas, choir, soloists, chamber music and electroacoustic music. His works are published by the most prestigious international publishers and record companies. He has 9 published technical books and dozens of scientific articles in specialized magazines. He is President of the Brazilian Society of Electroacoustic Music.

His political-cultural activity in Brasília came to fruition in 1984, when he composed and ruled his Sinfonia das Buzinas, also called SINFONIA DAS DIRETAS, engaged in the struggle for the redemocratization of Brazil, which at the time still lived under the military dictatorship. At the beginning of 2010 he came back to stand out in this strand of politically engaged music, with his street opera AUTO DO PESADELO DE DOM BOSCO, denouncing the corrupt politicians involved with Operation Pandora’s Box.

Militant of party politics, he was Secretary General of PSOL-DF, Socialism and Freedom Party, in the period 2011/2013. He was candidate by the PSOL, to Deputy District in 2006, to Senator in 2010 and to Deputy District in 2014.

In 2014 he received political amnesty and apology from the Brazilian State, with financial compensation, as compensation for the persecution and injustice suffered by his political activities during the military dictatorship.

In 2016 he returned to the politically engaged side of music, with a new Street Opera: OLYMPIA OU SUJADEVEZ, denouncing the corrupt politicians and the parliamentary coup of 2016.

In May of 2017, engaged against the Anti-People Reforms of the government of Michel Temer, he composed SINFONIA DOS DIREITOS, a musical work for declaimer, great instrumental ensemble, mixed choir, orchestra of horns and electronic sounds. The 50-minute work was presented in a public square on May 28, 2017.