The Auditorium is proud of the 2026-2027 season
The programming unfolds 500 concerts, and includes 48 premieres and 13 commissions
Barcelona"Legacy and discovery", insists Víctor Medem, director of L'Auditori since July 2025. "Legacy inspires discovery and new creations," he says. "The spiral philosophy motivates us: drawing from the past to build the future," recalls José R. Pascual-Vilaplana, titular conductor of the Banda Municipal de Barcelona. It's not exactly new, as L'Auditori's programming has always worked on this balance, but Medem defends it with renewed conviction while presenting the 2026-2027 season and exhibiting "pride in our facilities," with 3,500 subscribers (900 of whom are on the young flat-rate plan) and an artistic budget of 8.5 million euros (3% more than the previous season).
The legacy is easy to follow among the 500 concerts programmed (including those of the exemplary educational service), with 48 premieres and 13 commissions. The Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and National Orchestra of Catalonia (OBC) will tackle the great repertoire, this time with "a focus on the classicism of Haydn and Mozart" and with symphonic challenges such as Mahler's Second and Ninth and Shostakovich's Fourth and Eighth, in addition to Brahms' First, Prokofiev's Fifth, and Mendelssohn's Italian, among others. In Ludovic Morlot's fifth season as titular conductor of the OBC, the orchestra, says Medem, "is mature enough to perform the symphonic poems of Richard Strauss and the symphonic dances of Rachmaninoff." For the inaugural program, on October 2nd, Morlot has chosen Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 (with Jan Lisiecki as soloist), and Robert Gerhard's Concertino for String Orchestra.
In fact, Gerhard will be the most visible figure in the vindication of Catalan legacy. "We want him to have a regular presence. We want to be encyclopedic, with Gerhard," assures Medem. This heritage intention also implies programming works by Toldrà, Garreta, Albéniz, Freixas, Mompou, Serra and Alís, among others. In this regard, the recovery of Pere Joan Llonell's 18th-century "Requiem" and Joaquim Cassadó's Violin Concerto and Orchestra, and the OBC's program around Toldrà's "La rosa als llavis," completed with five Catalan songs orchestrated by Joan Magrané, should be highlighted.
Regarding the discovery, the OBC will premiere fourteen works and will program works by composers such as Blai Soler, Gabriela Smith, Cassandra Miller and Helena Cánovas, among others, in addition to Ariadna Alsina and Merche Blasco, who will be two of the four resident artists of the season; the other two are the pianist Saskia Giorgini and the soprano Elionor Martínez.
In the OBC season there will be guest conductors such as Vasily Petrenko, Edmon Colomer, Kent Nagano and Sebastian Weigle (who was director of the Liceu Orchestra from 2024 to 2008), and soloists such as the violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann, the baritone Matthias Goerne, and the pianists Alexei Volodin, Kirill Gerstein and Imogen Cooper, among others. The chamber season also presents a good selection of soloists, such as the pianist Yunchan Lim (who will debut in Barcelona) and the mezzo-soprano Anja Mittermüller, both recommended with conviction by Medem, in addition to the soprano Sabien Deviellhe (also debuting in the city) and the pianist Seong-Jin Cho. And in the Quartet Biennial, which the Casals Quartet will once again direct, the quartets Modigliani, Cosmos, Leonkoro, Arete, Quiroga, Brentano and Javus will participate.
A New Year's Eve concert by the Municipal Band
The Barcelona Municipal Band continues to be in a great moment, and in its ninth season under the baton of José R. Pascual-Vilaplana it proposes very interesting programs, such as one with Ottorino Respighi's Roman Festivals and John Corigliano's Circus Maximus Symphony to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Esmuc; another with Rimsky-Korsakov's Capricho español and one with Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 with Raül da Costa as soloist. Attention also to the concert to commemorate the centenary of Gabriel García Márquez, in which the band will perform La soledad de América Latina, with actor Francesc Orella as narrator. And as a novelty, a New Year's Eve concert conducted by Marcel Ortega and featuring musician Arnau Tordera and comedian Peyu.
In the vast programming of L'Auditori, the ninth edition of the Festival Llums d'Antiga also stands out, which will be inaugurated by the Orquestra de Miracle, and Jordi Savall's El So Original cycle, which will tackle Brahms' German Requiem, Handel's Te Deum, and Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth. The programming of the Sampler Series also continues, with a monograph on composer Charlotte Bray, and the Subsònic festival. As for the Music Museum, which will host concerts of the Quartet Biennial, it will dedicate exhibitions to Pau Casals, Ricard Viñas and Antoni Gaudí. And the educational project will premiere a new show: Xopluc, which is added to a very extensive program.
