Historical Overview
The 2014 Institutional Regulations of the Conservatorio Nacional de Música of Peru (CNM), which adopted a university model for awarding bachelor's degrees, established the Centro de Investigación, Creación Musical y de Publicaciones (CICREMP) as the institutional body responsible for promoting research activities.
From the outset, the objective was not simply to publish an institutional bulletin or newsletter, but to establish a scholarly journal capable of achieving international indexation and strengthening the CNM’s academic profile in music research. Conceived as one of CICREMP’s long-term strategic projects, the journal sought to fill a significant gap in the Peruvian academic landscape, where no specialized research journals existed in music—or, more broadly, in the arts. This vision gave rise to the subtitle Peruvian Journal of Music Research.
The journal's title was selected through a consultation with members of the Conservatory community. ANTEC refers to the ancestral composite flute, an instrument of profound symbolic significance whose image evokes Peru’s diverse musical cultures, their many forms of musical expression, and a sense of continuity across historical periods. In keeping with this concept, each issue of the journal includes a feature devoted to a particular variant of the instrument and its associated musical traditions.
ANTEC: Peruvian Journal of Music Research was founded during the first half of 2017, when the institutional transformation that would eventually lead to the creation of the Universidad Nacional de Música was already underway. Its editorial mission has been to publish original research grounded in musical practice, encompassing performance, composition, music pedagogy, and scholarly inquiry in both musicology and ethnomusicology. As the first peer-reviewed journal dedicated to music research established in Peru, ANTEC was created to provide a much-needed scholarly forum for the dissemination and advancement of musical knowledge.
During its initial stage, the journal established its visual identity, including its logo and emblem, color palette, and typographic system for each editorial section, all of which were formalized in a comprehensive visual identity manual.
Among ANTEC’s editorial milestones are the publication of an interview with the composer Enrique Iturriaga (1918–2019) marking the centenary of his birth; coverage of the Universidad Nacional de Música’s critical reissue of José Bernardo Alzedo’s Elementary Philosophy of Music (1869); the collection of testimonies by young Peruvian musicians on the pedagogical and musicological legacy of Américo Valencia Chacón following his death in 2019; the commemorative issues devoted to the Bicentennial of Peru’s Independence (2021); and the publication of the prize-winning research papers from the research competition organized by the Universidad Nacional de Música that same year.
An important editorial innovation was introduced with Volume 7, Issue 2, under the direction of Aurelio Tello as Editor-in-Chief, through the incorporation of a thematic dossier devoted to a specific topic. The inaugural dossier focused on Federico Gerdes on the 150th anniversary of his birth. Volume 8, Issue 1 was dedicated to electronic music in Peru, featuring studies of canonical works in the genre by emerging composers as well as interviews with contemporary composers whose creative work incorporates electronic media. Volume 8, Issue 2 commemorated the bicentennial of the Battle of Ayacucho by publishing papers presented at a virtual academic conference devoted to the event. Volume 9, Issue 1 marked the centenary of the death of José María Valle Riestra, while Volume 9, Issue 2 was dedicated to the life and work of the musicologist Chalena Vázquez on the seventy-fifth anniversary of her birth. Volume 10, Issue 1 commemorates the centenary of the birth of Celso Garrido-Lecca, one of Peru’s most distinguished composers.
The journal has also benefited from the growing participation of internationally recognized scholars in its research articles section. Contributors have included musicologists Clara Petrozzi, Zoila Vega, Julio Mendívil, Luis José Roncagliolo, Daniel Kudó, and Marino Martínez (Peru); José Manuel Izquierdo and Alejandro Vera (Chile); John Lazos (Mexico–Canada); and Mariantonia Palacios (Venezuela).
In addition to being indexed in DOAJ, MIAR, and REDIB by 2022, ANTEC was incorporated into the Oxford Bibliographies resource for Latin American music research in the field of traditional music. In September 2024, the journal was also admitted to the Latindex Directory—the Regional Online Information System for Scholarly Journals of Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain, and Portugal—after meeting all editorial quality standards required for inclusion.
