Paulo Costa Lima (born 1954 in Salvador, Bahia) is a senior Brazilian composer and music theorist, which has won more than 20 national and international Prizes and Commissions along his career.
A member of the Brazilian Academy of Music, Lima's main interest is the interaction between composition and culture, including its political aspects, namely composition as a way of resisting colonization and against the "waste of experience,"[1] the traditional circuit in which ideas (theory) are produced elsewhere and absorbed by the peripherical South of the Globe, as if the experience of populations in the periphery would be incapable of producing theory grounded musical practices.
From 2020 on, Lima has been posting short video analysis of Brazilian popular songs (usually showing aspects completely surprising to the general public) generating great interest in the social media, leading to a public of more than 200.000 people [7] Born in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil in 1954,[8] Lima studied composition with Lindembergue Cardoso and Ernst Widmer in Brazil, and Ben Johnston and Herbert Brün at the University of Illinois in the United States.
[17] He was included in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians in 2001 in an article written by Gerard Béhague[18] and, in 2016, the State University of Campinas held a festival in his honor.
Popular Masters of Culture), which recognized elderly citizens with a wide knowledge of ethnic-popular traditions [24] Other civic activities include Lima's organization of 456 capoeira performers, walking and dancing on the streets of Salvador to celebrate the anniversary of the city in 2005.
[25] Lima also organized the Cultural part of the Sociedade Brasileira para o Progresso da Ciência meeting in Salvador in 2001, dedicated to promote the relationship between arts and sciences.
[25] In the last four years Lima has dedicated himself to an intense work of cultural diffusion through the social media, publishing videos with analytical interpretations of Brazilian most well known popular songs, leading to the formation of an audience of more than 200.000 followers in Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.