Originally from Aveiro, Portugal, Tiago Matias completed the Advanced Course in Classical Guitar at the Aveiro Calouste Gulbenkian Conservatory of Music in 2002, receiving the top mark of 20 in his final guitar examination. In 2005, he earned a degree in Guitar from the Lisbon School of Music. He has been awarded prizes in several guitar competitions, notably the 1st Prize at Música en Compostela (Santiago de Compostela, 2004) and the 3rd Prize at the Legato Competition (Porto, 2000).

He regularly collaborates with ensembles such as the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, Ludovice Ensemble, Segréis de Lisboa, Sete Lágrimas, Casa da Música Baroque Orchestra, and Divino Sospiro, among others. He has recorded 18 albums with some of these groups and has performed in leading concert halls and music festivals around the world.In 2012, together with Filipe Faria, he founded the early music ensemble Noa Noa with which he has released four albums. In 2021, he recorded and released his first solo album, Cifras de Viola, featuring previously unpublished Portuguese works for viola (baroque guitar). The album was one of four nominated for the Play Awards in the category of Best Classical/Art Music Album that year. In 2023, he released Sospiro, an album for vihuela featuring transcriptions and arrangements of Portuguese Renaissance music. In the same year, he published a book of the same name, containing the tablatures and scores of the pieces recorded on the album. Fantasia, released in 2024, features contemporary music for solo theorbo composed specifically for him by five Portuguese composers. The accompanying book with the music scores was also published in 2024. Fantasia is the first album worldwide to consist entirely of contemporary music for solo theorbo. Also in 2024, he released Cordovil, dedicated to the complete surviving works for baroque guitar by José Ferreira Cordovil (c.1687–1761), marking the first ever recording of this repertoire. A book with transcriptions of the recorded works was published alongside the album. In 2025, he released his fifth solo album, Sombras, featuring the complete unpublished works for baroque guitar by António Marques Lésbio (1639–1709).

During the 2025/2026 season, he embarks on his first solo world tour, with 26 concerts across 12 countries.

As a pedagogue, he has given masterclasses in lute and guitar and has taught both instruments at the Aveiro Calouste Gulbenkian Conservatory of Music and the National Conservatory in Lisbon. He served as director of Quartel das Artes (Oliveira do Bairro) from 2018 to 2024. He is currently a researcher at the Centre for Classical and Humanistic Studies and a PhD candidate in Artistic Studies at the University of Coimbra.