Restaging Chiquinha Gonzaga (1847-1935): Reception and Performance Practice of Choro for Guitar

This project studies the constitutive role of performer-composer Francisca “Chiquinha” Gonzaga
(1847-1935) in the development of choro, Brazil’s first instrumental urban popular music. Building on
postcolonial theories of creolization and Gonzalez’s concept of Amefricanidade, it examines how
Gonzaga’s compositions and performances related to Afro-Brazilian and European musical traditions,
as well as broader cultural narratives of gender, class, race, and musicianship of late 19th- and early
20th-century Brazil. This project argues that Gonzaga not only engaged with and strategically
disrupted gendered, class-based, and racial norms of choro, but also participated in processes of
musical creolization through which key stylistic materials (rhythm, melody, harmony) were
transformed into a new urban genre, thereby defining choro’s musical language. The research
combines (1) Gonzaga’s reception in historical newspapers and periodicals to explore how public
discourse framed her musicianship; (2) her distinctive musical aesthetics within choro, examining
how race, gender, and class shaped her compositions and music performance; and (3) the creation of
historically informed performances of her choro guitar repertoire. By highlighting the contributions of
a woman in the Global South, this project advances a more profound understanding of historical
choro performance and challenges established Eurocentric and male-focused music studies.