Trained in Lyon with Marius Beuf (C.N.R.) and later with Maxence Larrieu (C.N.S.M., First Prize in 1985), José-Daniel Castellon demonstrated remarkable musical and flutistic precocity. At the age of 19, he was engaged by John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre National de l’Opéra de Lyon, and in the same year won the Geneva International Music Performance Competition.
From the 1989–90 season, at the request of Emmanuel Krivine, he held the position of principal flute with the Orchestre National de Lyon before choosing the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, where he served as principal flute until September 2004 under the successive direction of Jesús López-Cobos and Christian Zacharias.

Deeply committed to teaching, he became a certified professor at the age of 25, taught for 13 years at the Lyon C.N.R., then at the Geneva Conservatory during the 2001–2002 season, before being appointed in 2004 professor of flute for professional classes at the HEMU – Haute École de Musique de Lausanne.
He regularly gives masterclasses abroad (Switzerland, Brazil, Korea, Syria, Spain, China) and is invited to prestigious academies such as Les Arcs, the Canton International Summer Music Academy, the Tibor Varga Academy in Sion, and Palma de Mallorca. He is also frequently invited to serve on juries of major international flute competitions.

José-Daniel Castellon’s musical activity is marked by great versatility. He performs regularly as a soloist with orchestra—maintaining a close relationship with the “Concert Européen”—and is particularly devoted to chamber music, performing with piano, harp, string quartet, percussion, guitar, harpsichord, and with the trio “Pierre de Ronsard,” founded in 1998 with Isabelle Moretti (harp) and Nicolas Bône (viola). His repertoire ranges from early music, performed on a Chris Abell ebony flute, to contemporary music, including premieres of works by C. Ballif, O. Haugland and J. Dorival.

Among his projects is the forthcoming release of a CD featuring the complete concertante works for flute by A. Jolivet and F. Martin, recorded with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra and the Percussions Claviers de Lyon.
He has performed in cities such as Aversa, Basel, Bologna, Bordeaux, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Canton, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Geneva, London, Lucerne, Madrid, Milan, Munich, Oslo, Paris, Shanghai, Vienna, Zurich, and many others.