Conductor, composer and pedagogue, Josep Vila i Casañas was born in Sabadell, Spain, in 1966. His specialism is the a cappella repertoire, as well as choral and orchestral literature down the ages.
He is currently the head conductor of the Cor Lieder Càmera Choir of Sabadell and regularly collaborates with the Francesc Valls Chamber Choir of Barcelona. He has served as the resident conductor of the Orfeó Català choral society (1998-2016), the Cor de Cambra of the Palau de la Música Catalana (2011-2016), and the Radiotelevisión Española Choir (2007- 2010). He has made recordings for the Ficta, Columna Música, La Mà de Guido, Ars Harmonica, Solfa Recordings, Anacrusi, TVC Disc and RTVE record labels.
He has worked as a guest conductor with choirs and orchestras such as the Spanish National Choir, the Swedish Radio Choir, the World Youth Choir, the Orfeón Donostiarra choral society, the Choir of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, the Venezuelan Simón Bolivar National Youth Choir, the Radiotelevisión Española Orchestra, the Catalan Baroque Orchestra, the Andorran National Classical Orchestra, the 1750 Academy, the El Vallès Symphonic Orchestra and the Malaga Symphonic Orchestra.
In his role as a choral conductor, he has worked alongside leading orchestral conductors on the international music scene, among them Daniel Barenboim, Daniele Gatti, Simon Rattle, Gustavo Dudamel, Marc Minkowski, Jean-Christophe Spinosi, René Jacobs, Lorin Maazel, Helmuth Rilling and Franz Brüggen.
As a composer, his main area of interest is music for voice and instruments, and he has written an extensive body of works for children’s and youth choirs, for mixed a cappella choirs and for choir and orchestra. Sanctus-Benedictus (1992) and Salve Regina (2001) are his works most frequently performed around the world. Other recent works by him include Te Deum (2010), for mezzo-soprano, choir and orchestra; Missa Sanctus-Benedictus (2015), for two a cappella choirs; and the oratorio Veni Creator Spiritus, for four soloists, choir and orchestra, first performed at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona in 2016. Lau Haizerata (´at the four winds´) is a work composed in 2018 for choir and piano based on Basque folklore and the Missa Sagrada Família (2019) earned him the Premi Clavé for the best choral composition of the year in Catalonia.
Since 2005, he has taught choir conducting at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya. He also teaches in workshops, seminars and masterclasses on a regular basis in a number of cities of Europe and Latin America.