Winter Concert 2025: a tribute to Joan Casals i Clotet
The traditional UAB Winter Concert will take place on 11 December 2025 at 1:45 p.m. This eagerly awaited annual event takes on a profound meaning this year: the concert will be dedicated to the memory of Joan Casals i Clotet. He was the driving force and soul of the university orchestra, a key figure in the musical life of the campus, and a lecturer cherished across generations.
The concert will be held in memoriam of Joan Casals i Clotet.
The evening will open with the participation of the UAB Choir, conducted by Poire Vallvé, with Maria Massana Arnaus at the piano. The musical ensemble will offer a journey across cultures and sensibilities, a tribute to the diversity of popular music and its ability to express what words often cannot convey.
The choir invites us on a journey across cultures, landscapes and emotions. From the jubilant Gaudete to the traditional melodies of Turkey, the Middle East and North America, the choir explores the strength and tenderness of popular music in all its diversity. The poetic and intimate thread continues with creations by Catalan authors, ranging from the uncomfortable empathy of Faig un traç to the nostalgia of Vestida de nit, and culminating in the expressiveness of Llach and the energy of Txarango. A repertoire that celebrates the voice as a bridge between tradition, emotion and community.
This block will also include the participation of several soloists: Marc Navau, Gal·la Altarriba, Oriol Navarro, Mireia Folch, Paula Martín and Aran Montserdà, as well as violinist Magalí Torras.
After the choir, the stage will be set for the UAB Orchestra, conducted by Jesús Badia i Masgrau, which will offer a repertoire marked by respect, depth and the desire to pay tribute. It is made up of young and established musicians of various string, wind and brass instruments.
The concert will begin with the first movement of Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 36 by Ludwig van Beethoven, composed in 1802. In this work, already fully Beethovenian despite its date, contrasts, pauses charged with tension, and bursts of creative freedom emerge which at the time were astonishing for their almost reckless character.
The third part of the concert will bring the choir and orchestra together again to perform excerpts from J. S. Bach's motet “Jesu, meine Freude,” BWV 227, a cornerstone of the Baroque repertoire that explores the tension between light and shadow, sorrow and consolation.
The chosen movements: Weg mit allen Schätzen!, Gute Nacht, or Wesen (performed by the solo quartet) and Weicht, ihr Trauergeister, will resonate with a special significance. The determination to leave behind what is ephemeral, the tenderness of an intimate farewell, and the final light that dispels sadness become, in this context, a profound tribute to the figure of Joan Casals i Clotet.
The loss of Joan Casals, on 2 October of this year, deeply affected the university community. Founder and alma mater of the UAB Orchestra in its re-foundation in 1997, Casals leaves a musical, human and pedagogical legacy of a magnitude difficult to summarise.
Educated at the Escolania de Montserrat, where he maintained a lifelong bond, he excelled as an organist, pedagogue and conductor of choir and orchestra. He was the organist of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Terrassa, founder of the Catalan Organ Association, and a renowned lecturer of the Department of Didactics of Musical Expression at the UAB since 1975.