Born in Aveiro, Tiago Matias completed the Complementary Course in Classical Guitar at the Conservatório de Música de Aveiro Calouste Gulbenkian in 2002, achieving top scores in the final guitar exam. In 2005, he completed a degree in Guitar at the Escola Superior de Música in Lisbon. He has won prizes in various guitar contests, including 3rd place in the Concurso Legato (Porto, 2000) and 1st place in ‘Música en Compostela’ (Santiago de Compostela, 2004). He regularly collaborates with the groups ‘Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa’, ‘Ludovice Ensemble’, ‘Sete Lágrimas’, ‘Orquestra Barroca da Casa da Música’ and ‘Divino Sospiro’, among others.
He has recorded 15 albums with some of these groups and performed at the best concert halls and music festivals in Europe and Asia. In 2012, with Filipe Faria, he founded the early music ensemble ‘Noa Noa’, with which he released four records. In 2021, he recorded and released his first solo album, Cifras de Viola, with previously unheard Portuguese works for the viola de 5 ordens (5-course or baroque guitar) from the baroque period. The record was one of four short-listed for the Play Awards in the category of best classical/erudite music album of that year. In 2023, he recorded and released Sospiro, his second solo album, for vihuela, with transcriptions and arrangements inspired by Portuguese renaissance music. The same year, he published a book of the same name with the tablatures and scores of the works featured on the record.
As a teacher, he has led masterclasses in lute and guitar. He has taught these subjects at the Conservatório de Música de Aveiro Calouste Gulbenkian, the Escola de Artes da Bairrada and the Conservatório Nacional (Lisbon). He is the director of the Quartel das Artes (Oliveira do Bairro) and has a doctorate in Artistic Studies from the University of Coimbra.