In 1923 Pedro do Prado became a student at Lisbon’s National Conservatory, where he actively participated as a member of the Student’s Association. Six years later, in that same academic environment, he directed the magazine De Música with Fernando Lopes-Graça as editor. He attended the theory and aesthetics lectures with Luís de Freitas Branco, the counterpoint lectures with António Eduardo da Costa Ferreira, and the piano lectures with Lourenço Varella Cid. He was a founding member of the “Grupo dos Quatro”, which included Armando José Fernandes, Fernando Lopes-Graça and Jorge Croner de Vasconcellos.

After having briefly taught music between 1936 and 1941 at the Coimbra Music Institute, he was until the 1970s in charge of the music programme at the National Radio Broadcast Station. He created in this institution the Musical Studies Cabinet, allowing the commissioning of pieces and the employment of Portuguese composers for the production and performance of new music pieces.

Pedro do Prado was one of the founding members of the Portuguese Musical Youth and received from the French State the Arts and Literature knighthood citation.