Director - Estoril Lisboa Festival

Piñeiro Nagy has been an EFA member since the General Assembly in Santander in 1983 where he was introduced as a guest by EFA Honorary member Jose Luis Ocejo. Piñeiro is a very active EFA member, who has helped EFA reach a number of important things. For instance, he hosted the General Assembly in 1985, 1998 and 2019, as well as the 1st EFA Young Festival Managers Training Programme in 1999, which later became the Atelier for Young Festival Managers which we know today.

In 1997 he was elected for the first time to the EFA Board until 2002 and for the Eurofestival asbl board in 2001. From 2008 to 2014 and in 2017, returns again to the EFA Board. Since 1997 he has always been at the vanguard of new EFA initiatives and participated in all processes for the evolution and renewal of the EFA structure facing a new reality and policy view on the role of festivals in European cultural life. On the other hand, it defends and encourages strategies to support and to consolidate the continuity of the principles that have inspired the EFA foundation that today means tradition, heritage, intercultural dialogue, creativity and solidarity face of trends of uniformity, globalisation, egocentrism or exclusivity.

In addition, Piñeiro is also a musician and a festival director. He is a Spanish guitarist and a pupil of the eminent pedagogue and master of the guitar Emilio Pujol. He devotes special attention to the twentieth century repertoire and has introduced many pieces by contemporary composers to the international and Portuguese audiences for the first time. He introduced the guitar course in Portugal in 1968, where he lives, thus helping rise a very successful new generation of Portuguese guitarists. His Master-Classes in the USA, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Beijing, Seoul, Japan and Macau were remarkably well received, as well as his concert tours in Europe, USA and the Far East, including television and radio broadcasts and performances at the most prestigious European music festivals. From 1990 to 2011 he was invited Head of Guitar Department at the Superior School of Music in Lisbon.

The Brazilian Government awarded him the Heitor Villa-Lobos Medal for the interpretations of his complete guitar works and in 2005 the President of the Portuguese Republic, Dr. Jorge Sampaio, decorated him with the Comenda da Ordem do Infante D. Henrique.

Piñeiro founded the Estoril Music Festival in 1975 (today Estoril Lisbon Festival since 2013); the Estoril Interpretation Contest in 1990, the Mare Nostrum project in 2001 based on the Mediterranean cultural heritage in connection with composers of the new generation linking the past to the future trough the concept Tradition-Innovation. This experience inspired the creation of EFA MusMA in 2009 with a promising future for promotion of new creations and young talents. The festival aims at enriching the Portuguese cultural life, with particular emphasis on young students. It provides a range of fields including performances of chamber, symphonic, choral music; as well as traditional, jazz and dance; ancient music and solo recitals, combining artists and ensembles of worldwide reputation well-established or beginning a career.

He is also a producer of radio programmes on the history of guitar in musical life, not only in the soloist field, but also in chamber and orchestral music.

Piñeiro Nagy is a delicate, detailed and philosophical musician and festival organiser and a great friend.