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Composer, pianist, teacher, critic, lecturer, international jury member, direction member of several organizations, concert organizer and conductor. Important person in divulgating contemporary music in Portugal and potuguese music abroad.

Jorge Peixinho studied composition and the piano at the Conservatory of Lisbon. He was awarded a bursary from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to study with Boris Porena and Goffredo Petrassi at the Accademia de Santa Cecilia in Rome, where he received the diploma of advanced studies in composition in 1961.

After working with Luigi Nono in Venice he obtained another bursary from the Gulbenkian Foundation and the Cultural Institute to study with Pierre Boulez and Kalrheinz Stockhausen in Darmstadt on various occasions between 1960 and 1970.

During this decade he developed a broad range of activities as composer. pianist, teacher, concert organiser, lecturer and critic.

A bursary from the Belgian government for advanced studies in electro-acoustic music enabled him to work at the IPEM studio in Ghent in 1972–73. He later attended a workshop on music and computers at the Ircam, Paris.

In 1970 he created the Lisbon Contemporary Music Group which has since done valuable service in propagating contemporary music (with a particular emphasis on Portuguese music) and no less in theoretical and practical exploration of the problematic of new music and of new instrumental techniques.

In 1974 he received the composition prize of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and in 1976 that of the Portuguese performing rights society. In 1977 he was elected member of the Presidential Council of the ISCM (international Society for Contemporary Music). Throughout this period he collaborated regularity with the Gulbenkian Foundation’s Contemporary Music Encounters.

He taught at the National Conservatory of Lisbon. In recent years, before his untimely death at the age of 55, he was greatly in demand as a jury member and for both lectures and concerts.