The Orfeó Català will make its debut in Los Angeles with Gustavo Dudamel

Barcelona"The challenge is enormous," says the director general of the Palau de la Música, Joan Oller. The challenge is taken on by the Orfeó Català and the Chamber Choir of the Palau de la Música: 120 singers who will travel to Los Angeles to perform the Solemn masses with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, LA Phil, under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel, on February 20, 21 and 22, 2026. Also participating as soloists will be the soprano Pretty Yende, the mezzo-soprano Sarah Saturnino, the tenor Seokj. "It's one of the most difficult works in the repertoire," says Oller to recall the magnitude of a colossal work. "It's like singing the song nine times." Ninth Symphony. And Dudamel will surely be demanding," he adds.

The Orfeó Català has not sung this mass since 1963, but it has a special relationship, as explained by Joaquim Uriach, president of the Associació Orfeó Català: "The Orfeó was the first heart that interpreted it in the State, the 9th. They did three concerts in the Palau de la Música, plus a radio recording and a disc. In fact, it was the first recording in the history of the Solemn masses, which was released in a boxed set of twelve LPs." The trip to Los Angeles is an invitation from Dudamel, who will close his stint as principal conductor of the LA Phil in the 2025-2026 season. "We feel very proud, because it will be the first time that the Orfeón will come to the United States to give concerts."

From Anne-Sophie Mutter to Zubin Mehta

The announcement of the Orfeó Català's trip to Los Angeles has coincided with the presentation of the 2025-2026 season of the three main cycles of the Palau de la Música: Palau 100, Grans Veus and Palau Òpera, which have an artistic budget of 2.21 million euros (last season it was 1.96 million). As usual, these are the programmes that concentrate a good part of the big international names, both in terms of orchestras and conductors and soloists, such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Zubin Mehta, Daniele Gatti, Philippe Herreweghe, Sondra Radvanovsky, Piotr Beczała and Piotr Beczała.

Palau 100, the jewel in the crown, includes 12 concerts within the subscription, and 5 non-subscription, with milestones such as that of May 19, 2026: the Requiem by Verdi by Daniele Gatti at the head of the Staatskapelle Dresden, and, as Oller says, "with a cast of a dream, four extraordinary voices": Eleonora Buratto. Elina Garanca, Benjamin Bernheim and Michele Pertusi. Despite being an eminently symphonic cycle, the opening of Palau 100, on October 20, will feature a trio: fman and the Madrid cellist Pablo Ferrández, whom Joan Oller defends as "heir to Pau Casals". 'Archduke' Trio, by Beethoven, a composer whose works will be prominently featured throughout the season. For example, in the concert by Philippe Herreweghe with the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, which continues its particular integral of Beethoven's symphonies with the Ninth and Sixth (the Pastoral) on 23 October, and the Second, Fourth and Eighth on 5 February. The Pastoral will also be performed on 17 February in a concert by a "living legend of music", Zubin Mehta, who will conduct the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra founded by Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said. "Zubin Mehta will be 90 years old when he comes to the Palau," recalls Oller.

Another transversal composer in the 2025-2026 season is Igor Stravinsky. Rite of Spring is part of the program that the Tokyo Philharmonic will perform on November 6, and which also includes the Concerto for violin and orchestra by Tchaikovsky with Maxim Vengerov as soloist. Stravinsky, specifically the suite The Firebird, will also be heard on March 18 at the Iceland Symphony Orchestra concert under the direction of Eva Ollikainen, which will include a work by Icelandic composer Anna Thorvalsdottir, Archora, trained in 2022 at the BBC Proms. And the ballet Pulcinella will be part of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra's programme on 14 January, in which pianist Yuja Wang will play works by Chopin and Ligeti.

In keeping with the maxim "reconnect with things we like and discover others", Joan Oller and Mercedes Conde, the deputy artistic director of the Palau de la Música, have worked on a programme that reaffirms the crusade to make composers such as Bruckner and Sibelius more popular here, but also Sibelius (Symphony No. 1), Guinjoan (the fantasy of the brittle opera Gaudí) and Garreta (The Medes Islands) coincide on the OBC programme for 22 May 2026, conducted by Stephanie Childress, the OBC's Principal Guest Conductor. And the same will be true for the concert on 27 October by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, conducted by Vasily Petrenko, who will perform the Symphony No. 2 by Sibelius and Secret life by Albert Guinovart (in addition to the monumental Piano Concerto in A minor

Bruckner's presence will also be highlighted at one of the events of the season: the visit on November 21 of the Bavarian Radio Symphony under the direction of Simon Rattle. The program will feature the Symphony No. 2 of Bruckner and the rhapsody Taras Bulba by Janácek.

The great voices of the season

The six concerts of the cycle of great voices include recitals by singers much loved in Barcelona, ​​​​especially for the repeated performances they have given at the Liceu: the tenor Piotr Beczała (April 13, 2026) and the soprano Sondra Radvanovsky (April 21, 2026), who will premiere. The baroque repertoire will be defended by the soprano Julia Lezhneva with Giovanni Antonini's Il Giardino Armonico (March 10, 2026), and the countertenor Xavier Sabata (May 11, 2026), who will perform a program on baroque heroes with the ensemble Le Hostel Dios Concert. The cycle will begin and end with a lied: Benjamin Appl paying tribute to the baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (November 13) and Julia Kleiter, one of the stars of the Vilabertran Schubertíade (June 1, 2026).

Not only baroque operas

The non-staged opera cycle at the Palau de la Música has specialized in baroque works, and continues this line in a sixth edition that will open with Vísperas de Arnadí, under the direction of Dani Espasa, with The Mithridates Eupatore, by Alessandro Scarlatti, on October 15. Countertenor Philippe Jaroussky will conduct Alcina, by Händel, with the Ensemble Arteserse (November 9). And another opera by Händel, Giulio Cesare, will be presented by Francesco Corti and Il Pomo de Oro, with the soprano Sabine Devieilhe as Cleopatra. Finally, and already within the classicism, the cycle includes Orpheus and Eurydice, by Gluck, with mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli in the lead role in a proposal by Gianluca Capuano and Les Musiciens du Prince-Monaco.