Appointed by the French magazine Le Monde de la Musique (2004) as one of the most promising pianists of his generation, Gustavo Carvalho also holds the honorable endorsement of Nelson Freire: "The first time I heard him, I was 11 years old and was very impressed; he is someone very special, prepared, and of great value."

In 2004, he won the II Nelson Freire Competition in Rio de Janeiro.

Born in 1982 in Belo Horizonte, he began his studies with Magdala Costa in Belo Horizonte and continued them with Oleg Maisenberg at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and with Elisso Virsaladze at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. He also received guidance from Lazar Berman, Dmitri Bashkirov, and György Kurtág.

He has performed as a soloist with various orchestras, under the baton of Howard Griffiths, Yuri Bashmet, Ira Levin, and Evheny Bushkov, among others. He has appeared in important concert halls, such as the Tonhalle in Zurich, Musikverein in Vienna, Auditorium du Louvre, Philharmonie am Gasteig in Munich, and the Grand Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. He is frequently invited to prestigious festivals such as Piano aux Jacobins, the Mecklenburg Vorpommern festival, Prussia Cove, or Stift.

As a chamber musician, he has had the opportunity to collaborate with violinists Geza Hosszu-Legocky and Daniel Rowland, pianists Nelson Freire and Elisso Virsaladze, soprano Eliane Coelho, and members of the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras. His interest in contemporary music has led to collaborations with various renowned composers on the international scene, such as György Kurtág, Samir Odeh-Tamimi, Harry Crowl, and Sérgio Rodrigo.

In the 2022/2023 seasons, in addition to recitals and orchestra concerts in Brazil, France, Spain, Romania, and Germany, he will perform a series of two-piano recitals with pianist Cristian Budu, with whom he has had a duo since 2021. The Double Concerto by Mozart, the first result of this pianistic collaboration, recorded with the Orquestra de Ouro Preto, will also be released in Brazil this year.

Gustavo Carvalho is the founder and artistic director of the Artes Vertentes Festival – International Arts Festival of Tiradentes. His passion for visual arts has also led him to develop a career as a curator of visual arts, having curated more than 80 exhibitions in Brazil, Europe, and Asia.