Manoel Corrêa do Lago has a double degree in Economics and Music. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Economics from UFRJ (UFRJ), followed by a Master's degree (“ Master in Public Affairs ”) from Princeton University (1980).

His musical studies took place in Geneva, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, and Princeton with Madeleine Lipatti and Arnaldo Estrella (piano), Esther Scliar and Annette Dieudonné (music theory), Henrique Morelenbaum (orchestration), Michel Phillipot and Milton Babbitt (analysis), and Nadia Boulanger (composition). In 2005, he received his doctorate in Musicology from Unirio (Rio de Janeiro State University) under the supervision of José Maria Neves and Elizabeth Travassos, followed in 2008 by a postdoctoral fellowship at the IEB/USP (Brazilian Institute of Music Studies) under the supervision of Flavia Camargo Toni.

He has published several texts: for the Dover reissue of the score of Le Boeuf sur le Toit by Darius Milhaud, and for specialized magazines such as Brasiliana , Latin American Music Review , Ring Shout , Revista Brasileira de Música , Cahiers Debussy .

He coordinated the critical edition of the Practical Guide , by Heitor Villa-Lobos, launched in 2009 by the Brazilian Academy of Music. His thesis The Veloso-Guerra Circle and Darius Milhaud in Brazil: Musical Modernism in Rio de Janeiro before the Week was awarded the “Capes/Arts Area Award 2006” and published in 2010. In 2011 he was the organizer of the book The Ox on the Roof – Brazilian Music in French Modernism , and in 2016 of the book A New French Mission .

He was elected in 2010 to Chair No. 15 (“Carlos Gomes”) of the Brazilian Academy of Music .