Luís de Matos (born 23 August 1970, full name Luís Manuel Curcialeiro Godinho de Matos) is a Portuguese magician. He has been called “the best known illusionist in Portugal” and was the co-winner of the "Golden Grolla" in 2013 alongside Lu Chen and Dynamo. He was the youngest magician ever to receive "The Devant Award" from The Magic Circle (October 19, 2013).

Life and career

Luis de Matos was born in Maputo, then called Lourenço Marques, Portuguese Mozambique, in 1970, a Portuguese overseas province until 1975. At the age of five he moved with his parents to Portugal where the family settled in Avelar, a civil parish of the municipality of Ansião. At age 14, he moved to Coimbra to complete his technical studies, living with his cousins. There, he earned a bachelor's degree (B.Ag) in agricultural technical engineering from Escola Superior Agrária de Coimbra (ESAC) part of the Instituto Politécnico de Coimbra (IPC). He had his first guest appearances on television in 1990; then two years later hosted his own television series entitled "Isto é Magia!" ("This is Magic"). This was followed by several other TV magic shows. In 1995 Luis de Matos predicted the winning numbers of Portugal’s national lottery one week's time in advance and, as one journalist put it, went overnight “from being ‘the cute kid who does tricks’ into the David Copperfield of Portugal.” In the following years, he won several international prizes such as the "Magician of the year" (Hollywood Academy of Magical Arts − 1999) and the “Mandrake d’or” (French Society of Magicians − 2000). In 2003, he cooperated in preparing the opening ceremony for the Estádio do Dragão in Porto. During that ceremony, he had bags with pieces of blue silk distributed to the audience and asked them to hold the pieces aloft simultaneous. Then, he made all the some 52,000 pieces of silk vanish, a trick that entered the Guinness Book of Records. Luis de Matos has made appearances and started as a regular in TV shows worldwide like "Shalakabula" in Spain, BBC ”The Magicians”, and its latest Spanish version “Por Arte de Magia”. He had a program for ten years on TVG. In 2010, in collaboration with David Britland and Marco Tempest, Luis de Matos organized The Essential Magic Conference, at that time the first online magic conference. His most ambitious project to date is the creation of ESTÚDIO33 in Ansião, at the same time a TV studio, workshop, documentation center, and museum. In 2013 Luis de Matos received his third award by the Hollywood Academy of Magical Arts, the “Special Fellowship Award." Luís de Matos organizes the annual “Street Magic Festivals” in Portugal.

Television

Tours

The Illusionists 2.0

Releases

Books

DVDs

Magic Kits

Awards