Born in Oporto in 1988, Nuno Cernadas was admitted to the city’s Music Conservatory at the age of 8, where he studied under Constantin Sandu and Fátima Travanca.
He has earned his Bachelor Degree in Escola Superior de Música e Artes do Espectáculo do Porto (ESMAE) in July 2010 in the class of Prof. Constantin Sandu, with the maximum points, one of only four students to ever achieve such a distinction. While attending the 3rd year of graduation, Nuno was accepted to study as an Erasmus student at the Liszt Academy of Music of Budapest, in the class of Prof. István Gulyás.
He was admitted in 2010 to the Master Diploma at the prestigious Hochschule für Musik Freiburg im Breisgau, where he studied with Prof. Gilead Mishory, earning his Master Degree with the highest mark on March 2013, after presenting his Thesis: “Alexander Scriabin – Aesthetic Development through Selected Piano Works”.
After a demanding entrance examination, Nuno was accepted in the Solist Diploma at the Hochschule für Müsik Karlsruhe under the guidance of Professors Michael Uhde, Anna Zassimova and Angelika Merkle. He finished the degree with distinction in July 2016.
Nuno has had the privilege of working with some renowned pianists and pedagogues such as Maria Lettberg, Sequeira Costa, Paul Badura-Skoda, Boris Berman, Vitaly Margulis, Solomon Mikowsky, Homero Francesch and Dina Yoffe.
In June 2006 came his debut as soloist, interpreting “Malédiction” of Franz Liszt with the Oporto Music Conservatory Orchestra under Maestro Kamen Goleminov. It was most probably the Portuguese première of the work.
In March 2010, he was invited to take part in the Harmos Festival playing Beethoven’s Triple Concert with the Harmos Festival Orchestra and Conductor Dirk Vermeulen, having as partners Nadja Nevolovitsch (violin) and Povilas Jacunskas (cello). The concerts took place in Vila do Conde and in the Sala Suggia of Casa da Música in Oporto.
In October 2011 he performed alongside Orquestra do Norte and its conductor José Ferreira Lobo, Mozart’s Piano Concerto Nr.21 in C major. In this instance, Nuno composed and performed his cadenzas for the Concerto. In August 2015, he was invited to play Messiaen’s “Oiseaux Exotiques” with the orchestra of the 2nd Summer Academy of Remix Ensemble. In July 2016 he played alongside the Baden-Baden Philharmonic and conductor Tobias Drewelius, Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto op.73.
Nuno won several prizes in national and international competitions, such as the 1st Prize and Best Imposed Piece in “Marília Rocha” and also 2nd Prize in “Concurso Nacional de Piano Cidade da Guarda”. He was also awarded 2nd Prize ex-aequo (alongside Horácio Ferreira, clarinet) as well as the Public Prize in the 16th Estoril National Competition | El Corte Inglés Prize, 2014.
In June 2009, Nuno was awarded with the 1st Prize in the International Piano Competition “Pro-Piano”, in Bucharest, Romania.
Nuno has recorded for RTP (Portuguese Television and Radio) and for Euroclassical.
After passing admission examinations and being accepted at both the Sibelius Academy Helsinki and the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel/Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Nuno Cernadas started a Ph.D in Brussels with a focus on the Piano Sonatas of Alexander Scriabin under the supervision of world‐renowned pianists Jan Michiels and Håkon Austbø, continuing his specialization on the Russian composer’s piano music.
Since October 2018, Nuno Cernadas is Assistant Piano Professor at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel (Royal Conservatory of Brussels). He was also appointed by the Erasmushogeschool Brussel as its coordinating researcher in several institutional cooperation projects between European music universities in the framework of the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union.
In November 2021, Nuno Cernadas performed as soloist with the Gulbenkian Orchestra and conductor Nuno Coelho, in two concerts at the Great Hall of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, in which he interpreted Liszt’s Totentanz.