Nuno Costa (November 4, 1986 – Cerva, Portugal) studied music composition at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome) under Ivan Fedele, the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp, with Wim Henderickx, the Escola Superior de Música, Artes e Espectáculo (Porto) under Eugénio Amorim, and electronic music at the Haute école de musique de Genève with Luis Naón, Michael Jarrell and Gilbert Nouno. He attended masterclasses with K. Saariaho, G. Aperghis, M. Andre, Ph. Manoury, I. Mundry and many others, and participated on the Summer Course in Darmstadt, among other activities. He also had an important experience of working with the composer Joaquim dos Santos.
From 2014 to 2016 the Istituto Italiano di Cultura granted him a scholarship. After receiving the ISCM Young Composer Award 2015, he was selected to participate in the Late Fall Banff Musicians in Residence at The Banff Centre (Canada, 2015) and was awarded with the Bourse artistique attributed by Casa de Velázquez – Académie de France à Madrid (2016). He was a Laureate from Fondation Royaumont (Voix Nouvelles, 2018) and was also selected for a residence at The Camargo Foundation (France, 2019). He won the impuls International Composition Competition (Klangforum Wien, 2017/19) and the 47º Irino Prize (Japan). He also was granted by Nicati-de Luze Foundation (Swiss).
He obtained commissions from Teatro La Fenice (2015), La Biennale di Venezia (2016), Fondation Royaumont (2018), Casa da Música (2019), ISCM (2020), Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (2021), A Música Portuguesa A Gostar Dela Própria (2022). His music was performed during the impuls Festival in Graz, Festival Musica in Strasbourg, ISCM World Music Days and at venues like the Constellation-Chicago (IL), Le Laboratoire (Cambridge, MA), The DiMenna Center (NY). In 2019, he was selected to compose a chamber opera for 63º Festival Internazionale di Musica Contemporanea della Biennale di Venezia.
His music represented Portugal at the International Rostrum of Composers 2016 (UNESCO), in Wrocław.
He is developing a Doctoral Programme in Cultural Sciences at Universidade do Minho (Portugal, 2020).
Nuno has a special interest in improvisational work with groups of people who are not necessarily professional musicians and enjoys letting himself be carried away by the imagination that nighttime sky observation allows – the infinity of the universe: the brilliance of its stars and the colors of its planets.
