The Sant Jordi Choir was created in 1947 by a group of friends, with the encouragement of Oriol Martorell. Martorell conducted the choir from the very start and championed not only a personal approach to understanding and performing music, but also a decidedly social vision of musical performance as an act both connected and committed to what the country was experiencing at the time.

For the Sant Jordi Choir, Martorell’s contribution has been essential: he was the soul and driver of a choral approach whose continued relevance is clear from his words: “[…] we wanted to sing everything: from medieval Gregorian melodies and music from the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat (Red Book of Montserrat) all the way through to jazz, not forgetting the works of the greats from every era”.

With this eclectic spirit, allied to a commitment to Catalan music, the Choir has a long tradition of promoting and sharing music. It has performed more than 1,800 concerts in Catalonia, Spain and other European countries, and has collaborated with a number of prestigious conductors and composers, including Sergiu Celibidache, Eduard Toldrà, Duke Ellington, Antoni Ros Marbà, Sergiu Comissiona, Edmon Colomer, Laszlo Heltay, Laurence Foster and Lluís Llach, among others.

Boasting more than 70 years of history, the Sant Jordi Choir remains faithful to its original mission of communicating the heritage of choral music with maximum technical and artistic rigour to the widest possible audience. Drawing on its experience to look ahead towards the future, the choir remains enthusiastic about overcoming the challenges that currently face the world of choral singing, while constantly seeking to improve the musical process in all its aspects.  

Since September 2016 the choir’s principal conductor has been Oriol Castanyer i Martí.