Vic Nees was born in Mechelen on 8 March 1936, the son of carillon composer Staf Nees. After a year of study in arts at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, he enrolled at the conservatory in Antwerp, where he earned first prizes in harmony, counterpoint, fugue and composition, studying with Marcel Andries and Flor Peeters, among others. In 1964 he was a laureate of the Meisterkurs für Chorleitung given by Kurt Thomas at the Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg. From 1961, Nees worked for the BRT (Belgian Radio and Television), first as a choral music producer and from 1970 as conductor of the radio choir. From 1961 to 1969 he led the Vokaal Ensemble Philippus de Monte in Mechelen and the Ter Kamerenkoor in Brussels. Nees has received numerous awards for his compositions: in 1973 he won the Eugène Baie Prize for his complete output of choral music, in 1990 the AGEC Prize (awarded by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Europäischer Chorverbände) for Regina Coeli-Blue be it (1988) and in 1995 the Vondel Prize (from the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung in Hamburg). He is regularly asked to serve as a jury member for choral festivals (Arezzo, Cork, Tours, Neerpelt…) and through his courses in choral conducting, his contributions to periodicals and radio programmes and his editions of both contemporary and historical choral music, he has achieved an important position in the movement for innovative choral music.

Vic Nees passed away on March 14, 2013.