Carlos Paredes e a guitarra portuguesa: invenções da nossa terra

This article focuses on the figure and musical work of Carlos Paredes and takes a brief journey through his life. An unquestionable symbol of the Portuguese guitar, a composer with rare creative resources, he started from traditional identity elements and from Coimbra's fado, and he foresaw new horizons and sound atmospheres that were so unique and distinct, so collective and, truly, so ours. An accomplice of freedom, Carlos Paredes draws on his context and his experiences for a composition that is so genuine and rooted in the land in constant perpetual movement linked to the green years. His importance reserves him a prominent place in the history of popular music in Portugal and his legacy transcends borders and carries characteristic and expressive sound movements in the form of nostalgia. Carlos Paredes' work is universal, a landmark in the Portuguese musical tradition and part of the collective memory of the people and their identity as cultural heritage. His work, inseparable from the guitar, the musician and the music, reinvented a particular musical language that popularised him without vanity and inscribed the Portuguese guitar in the four corners of the world.