Estacio was born in Newmarket, Ontario. Raised in the farming community of the Holland Marsh, Ontario, Estacio took piano and accordion lessons, and played church organ every Sunday. As a teenager, he created soundtracks for short student films, played trumpet, and performed in high school productions of Broadway musicals.
He majored in composition at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario studying with Glenn Buhr and Peter Hatch. He earned his post-graduate degree at the University of British Columbia where he studied composition with Stephen Chatman.
In 1992, his first major orchestral work, Visoes da Noite, won second-prize in the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s Canadian Composers Competition. Saudades for orchestra was premiered at the WSO's New Music Festival in 1993.

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