António Pinho Vargas was born in 1951, in Vila Nova de Gaia near Oporto. He graduated in History and has the final degree in Piano by the Oporto Conservatory. With a scholarship from the Foundation Calouste Gulbenkian, he studied three years with the composer Klaas de Vries at the Rotterdam Conservatory, having majored in Composition in 1990. He was decorated by the President of the Portuguese Republic with the commend Order of the Infante D.Henrique, in 1995.