born in 1960 in Curitiba, Brazil, he studied music with Hans-Joachim Koellreutter, Esther Scliar, and attended the Cursos Latino-Americanos de Música Contemporânea. In 1980, he created the Grupo Juntos–Música Nova, dedicated to Brazilian and Latin American young composers’ repertoire. As composer, he has received commissions notably from Donaueschinger Musiktage, MaerzMusik in Berlin, Pro-Musica Nova in Bremen, Perth Festival, São Paulo Biennale, Munich Biennale, and Résonance Contemporaine.
In the last two decades, he has intensively collaborated with the contemporary theatre and dance scene in Brazil. He has been curator of new music events such as Escuta! (1998/2000), Música de Invenção (1995), Fronteiras (1999) and Diálogos (2002).
In 2004. he obtained a PhD with a dissertation titled Biocounterpoint: the counterpoint we learned from the frogs, an interface between bioacoustical and musical polyphonical strategies.
His first opera, A Queda do céu, was premiered as part of the Amazonas trilogy at the 2010 Munich Biennale.
Currently, he teaches at the Federal University in Rio de Janeiro and is guest lecturer at the KlangKunstBühne summer academy in Berlin.

Major works: Matéria e memória for flute, clarinet and guitar (1977), Música gestual III for oboe, clarinet and piano (1979), Juntos for wind quintet, piano and percussion (1980), Música gestual IV for orchestra (1981), Música gestual V for chamber ensemble (1981), Blue for piano and electric guitar (1981), Música gestual VI for orchestra (1982), Prostituta americana for chamber ensemble (1983), Música noturna for chamber ensemble (1985), Organismo for guitar quartet (1987), Juremá for 13 singers (1989), Veredas for two actors, two guitars, percussion and tape (1989), Quarteto das cordas for brass quartet and percussion (1991), Organismos for two guitars and cello (1992), Samba do crioulo doido for two percussions (1993), Expiral for piano and electric guitar (1995), Bioritmias for chamber ensemble (1996), Sopro for violin, cello and piano (1997), Pequena música noturna for chamber ensemble (1998–99), Estratos for orchestra (1999), Audiobioespectro for orchestra (2001), Dança das cinzas for Geralda multi-instrumental structure (2001), Tão sertão for Geralda multi-instrumental structure (2002), Concerto for Female Orchestra (2005), The Fall of the Sky, opera (2009), Uma figura sobre um fundo for prepared piano (2012).