Nelson Jesus (1986), Initially self‐taught, he studied with Fernando Lapa and João‐Heitor Rigaud at the Porto Conservatory of Music. He pursued further private studies with composer Fernando Altube and studyed composition at the Escola Superior de Música in Lisbon, where he studied with; Sérgio Azevedo, Luís Tinoco, Carlos Marecos, Roberto Perez and Jaime Reis.
He has won many prizes, including: 1st Composition Prize for the Ibermúsicas Symphonic Band Oaxaca‐2014; 2nd Prize in the IV National Composition Competition of the Portuguese Symphonic Band;
1st Prize in the 4th Edition of the Composition Contest for the Inatel Wind Orchestra ‐ Army Band; and 1st WASBE Composition Award for band in the educational category in 2017. In 2018, he also
won the SPA Composition/Antena 2 Award (Author´s Society and Classical Radio award), through which he was made a fellow of the Gulbenkian Foundation, and which allowed him to take classes with the
composers Adam Gorb, Oliver Waespi, Tomi Räisänen and Jukka Tiensuu.
He was a resident composer for the Cascais and Oeiras Chamber Orchestra in 2017 and a resident composer for the Sherborne Summer School of Music in 2019 (United Kingdom).
In 2019, he was a semifinalist at the prestigious Zemlinsky Composition Prize and in 2020, he won an Honorable Mention at the Francisco Martins Prize – Orquestra Clássica do Centro. Recently he recently won three more first prizes: Emílio Porto Coral composition Prize, 1st International BSP Composition Prize and Loures International Composition Prize for clarinet and band.
In 2021 and 2022 he had the premiere of his symphonies nº1 and nº2 and was a resident composer at the Gulbenkian Orchestra supported by the ENOA program where he worked with composer Kaija Saariaho. He is currently a freelance composer and works mostly on commissions.