Born in Nantes, France in 1972, Victor Costa began his musical studies at the age of 9. He first learned the accordion, and then went to the conservatory of his native city where he studied many disciplines: French horn, piano, chamber music, musical analysis, harmony, electroacoustic music, jazz, composition, and piano accompaniment (from 1994 to 1996, he was the piano accompanist of the singing and lyrical class of the Nantes Conservatory). At the age of 16, he began studying the conducting of orchestra with Jenö Rehak and conducted his first concert at the age of 17.
In 1995, he was accepted into the conducting class of Jean-Sébastien Béreau and János Fürst, and into the orchestration class of Jacques Charpentier at the Paris Conservatory. He took part in the Master-Classes of Vitaly Kataev, John Nelson, Lucas Pfaff, Gianfranco Rivoli, etc., before receiving first prize unanimously in conducting in 1998. He then furthered his studies with Kenneth Kiesler, James Levine, Kurt Masur, David Robertson and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
In 1998, Victor Costa was the first prizewinner unanimously of the International Competition for Orchestra Conductors ”Franco Capuana” in Spoleto, Italy. In 2001, he was also a prizewinner of the International Conducting Competition “Nicolaï Malko” in Copenhagen, Denmark and in the “Foundation Oriente” Competition in Lisbon, Portugal.
Victor Costa was the musical director of the Nantes Symphonic Association from 1991 to 1995 and the principal guest conductor of the Orchestral Ensemble of Val-de-Loire from 1996 to 2000. In 2000, he conducted “Carmen” of Bizet while on tour in Italy with the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale “A.Belli” of Spoleto. Since 2002, he regularly has been conducting productions at the Lyon Operetta Theatre. In 2006, he was the assistant conductor of Claire Gibault at the prestigious Châtelet Theatre in the World Première of the Patrick Burgan’s “Peter Pan” Opera.
He has also conducted the Choir and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio-France, the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra, the French Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Flaine Festival, the Rome Santa Cecilia Conservatory Orchestra, the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, the UBS Verbier Festival Youth Orchestra, the Sibelius Academy Orchestra, The Bolzano and Trento “J. Haydn” Orchestra, the Orchestra of Colours of Athens, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the France National Orchestra, the Ile-de-France National Orchestra, the Montpellier National Orchestra, the Frankfort Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Kharkov Philharmonic Orchestra, the Silesian Philharmonic Orchestra, the German State Philharmonic Orchestra of Rhineland-Palatinate, the University of Michigan Philharmonia Orchestra, the Lyon National Orchestra and the Paris Orchestral Ensemble.