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José Soares is Associate Conductor of the Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2021, he won first place and the audience prize at the 19th Tokyo International Music Competition <Conducting>. Born in São Paulo, Brazil, he began studying piano and choir at the age of seven under the tutelage of his mother, Ana Yara Campos. In a joint program with the São Paulo Youth Symphony Orchestra, he studied orchestral conducting with Claudio Cruz.

Participated as a trainee at the 2016 and 2017 Campos do Jordan International Winter Music Festival under the guidance of Marin Alsop, Arvo Volmer, Giancarlo Guerrero, Neil Thomson and Alexander Liebreich. At the same music festival, he won the 2017 Music Festival Conducting Award and was invited by Music Director Marin Alsop to conduct two Sunday matinees of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra in 2017-18. In September 2017, he served as Music Director and conductor of a pocket opera version (note: chamber opera) of Rossini's Cenerentola produced in Brazil.

In the 2018 season, he was invited as a guest assistant conductor of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra. In 2019, he studied under the guidance of Paavo Järvi and Leonid Grin as a conducting trainee at the Järvi Academy, a master class at the Parnu Music Festival (Estonia). Soares first performed with the Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra in 2017 during a masterclass with the orchestra's Music Director, Fabio Mechetti. Mechetti then invited Soares to conduct a youth concert for the 2019 season. His contract with the Minas Gerais Phil begins the 2020 season as an assistant conductor, before becoming an associate conductor at the start of the 2022 season. Currently studying composition at the University of Sao Paulo.