José Antônio Rezende de Almeida Prado, known as Almeida Prado, was born on February 8, 1943, in Santos, São Paulo, Brazil, a composer of classical music and pianist. He began his musical training with Dinorá de Carvalho for piano, Osvaldo Lacerda for harmony, and Camargo Guarnieri for composition. His breakthrough came in 1969 when he won first prize at the I Festival de Música da Guanabara for his cantata Pequenos Funerais Cantantes. Following this success, Almeida Prado studied with Olivier Messiaen and Nadia Boulanger in Paris from 1970 to 1973. Upon returning to Brazil in 1974, he taught at the Conservatório Municipal de Cubatão and later became a professor at the UNICAMP Institute of Arts, retiring in 2000. Almeida Prado passed away on November 21, 2010, in São Paulo.
