Carlos Caires was born in Portugal in 1968. He holds a degree in composition from the Escola Superior de Musica in Lisbon, and received a fellowship from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology to pursue a doctorate in composition at the University of Paris 8 under Horacio Vaggione.

His compositions have been performed in festivals in Europe and in Asia. In Portugal, they have been featured in festivals such as Festival dos 100 Dias da Expo’98, Música Viva in 2003, 2006, and 2008, the Festival Estoril Lisboa in 2004, and the Festival Leiria an Música Portuguesa Hoje-CCB in 2008. They have also featured at the Atlantic Waves Festival in 2004 (United Kingdom), the Dresden Festival in 2005, the Berliner Festspiele 2008 (Germany), and in China at the Shanghai Electroacoustic Music Week in 2009.

His compositions have won awards such as the Joly Braga Santos Prize in 1994 for Al niente…, the Claudio Carneyro Prize in 1996 for Wordpainting, and the ACARTE-Madalena Perdigão Prize in 1998 for Retábulo-Melodrama.

As a researcher, Caires developed the IRIN micromontage software program, a project he began while pursuing his doctorate at the CICM (Centre de recherche Informatique et Création Musicale) of the University of Paris 8, and which he has continued at the Research Center for Science and Technology in the Arts (CITAR) of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa in Porto. He is also a member of Prisma, an international research group of composers and researchers focused on pedagogy and research on assisted musical systems.

Carlos Caires lives in Lisbon and teaches composition at the Lisbon Escola Superior de Musica.