Toni Castells

Michael Haas, multi-Grammy-winning producer of Solti, Mehta, Barenboim, Bartoli, Pavarotti and Rostropovich, described his music as "Morricone meets Satie." The Independent called it "Pop goes Mozart." London's Tourdates described it as "Massive Attack meets Mendelssohn." US label Magnatune as "Puccini meets Sigur Rós." A Catalan composer based in London, Castells has spent over two decades building a musical language that fuses classical composition, opera, electronica, contemporary songwriting and spoken word not as pastiche or crossover, but as a single coherent voice. While the neoclassical wave of the 2000s had settled into a Northern European aesthetic — restrained, secular, minimalist — Castells moved in the opposite direction: maximalist, dramatic, emotionally unguarded, and deeply spiritual. His work has always reached toward transcendence, toward questions of faith and what lies beyond the material at a moment when the mainstream had little room for that. Increasingly, it does. He has collaborated and worked with artists such as Plácido Domingo, Hayley Westenra and Beth Rodergas, and performed at Union Chapel and LSO St Luke's. The Guardian named 2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal one of its "Five of the Best Classical Concerts" in 2016. His work has been presented at the Saatchi Gallery and the United Nations Headquarters during World Oceans Day. His music has been used in over 200 million user-generated videos across YouTube and Facebook worldwide.