Jorge Drexler (Montevideo, 1964) is a wellspring of musical curiosity. His attitude and his eagerness to experiment within songs and emotions have made him a fundamental influence on countless musicians. Drexler's new adventure is the album Taracá (Sony, 2026), a lesson in sensitivity and rhythmic exuberance, with Uruguayan candombe as its driving force, which vindicates the restorative power of words and the subversive power of dance. It includes collaborations from Puerto Rican Young Miko, Andalusian Ángeles Toledano, and Meritxell Neddermann from Maresme, as well as Uruguayan groups like the murga Falta y Respeto, among others. The corresponding tour will stop at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona on October 31st.

You stand at the gates of seventh heaven, ceremonial and sensible, but then you run to hide among worldly joy, wild and reckless. You rise like a solemn prophet unafraid to make friends with the creatures of hell. You wear humor as a shield, and espadrilles to keep your feet light and grounded. Hope is more rhetorical than convincing, and yet, you do not give up proclaiming it. You sing of love and all that happens "skirting the perimeter." The years pass and you are still here, giant of Solsonès, provoking a smile with a joke, as if the intention were to lessen the impact you cause with your performance. You know it well, Roger Mas, who summons 2,000 people to marvel at the complete works of two albums with the Cobla Sant Jordi Ciutat de Barcelona. And at the Teatre Grec, the same venue where on July 2, 2022 you celebrated 25 years of artistic career with one of the best shows in the history of the Grec Festival. It made sense, therefore, that the same festival would now host the concert of the complete cobla works.

The two ground floors at number 54 Via Laietana in Barcelona were a bank office and a clothing store, but the most peculiar use of one was as an occupied afterparty. During the pandemic lockdown, the occupants often brought chairs outside to spend time in the sun. Later, the premises were left closed, waiting for someone to love them. The location is privileged, on the corner with Ramon Mas street and in front of the Urquinaona metro entrance (L4), a traffic-free zone after the urban planning reform of Via Laietana and Jonqueres street. And now these 354 m² have been rented by the Palau de la Música, which will open the Nova Porta del Palau there in the autumn, as Joaquim Uriach explained to ARA, president of the Orfeó Català-Palau de la Música Catalana Foundation. For now, the space is in the final phase of construction, and the forecast is that the inauguration will be in September or October.

The artistic choice foreshadowed a very interesting night to musically celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Grec Festival at the Grec Theatre in Barcelona. And the repertoire that appeared in the program showed special care in the selection of material, with a subtle thread of Greek references, bridges between the different shores of the Mediterranean and Latin America, pacifist determination, and poetic scope (from Zülfü Livaneli to Kavafis, from Aristophanes to Ramon Llull). More than a festive revelry and intoxication, Songs of the Grec. 50 years of music, bridges, and mestizaje was intuited as a serene night, and it was, but with a bunch of unforgettable moments.

In January 2026 it was made official the creation of the Robert Gerhard Foundation, dedicated to the dissemination of the work of one of the most relevant Catalan composers of the 20th century, born in Valls in 1896 and died in Cambridge in 1970. According to the president of the Foundation, Edmon Colomer, one of the purposes was that "the musical self-esteem of the country should be translated into cultural facts". The first translation arrived this Friday with the presentation of the first Robert Gerhard Biennial, promoted by the same foundation and L'Auditori, with the collaboration of Esmuc, the Museum of Music and the Friends of Music and Valls. The program will unfold in different spaces in Barcelona and Valls from September 30 to November 22.

The Costa Brava, England and Colombia are the cardinal points that guide the musical trajectory of Cristina Pérez Tallada (Lloret de Mar, 1998), Cristina La Mar as her artistic name. "Lloret is my home, I love it very much. And I dreamed of Colombia; very accurately, I dreamed I was going there", explains the singer from Selva, who on Saturday, July 18th, performs at Poble Espanyol (7:30 PM), as part of the programming of the village of the Barts Festival. It is not surprising, then, that the songs on the album Una flor en la luna (Warner Chapell, 2026) are steeped in Mediterranean details and, above all, Colombian perfume, both rhythmically and in the sound of the strings. "Traveling through Colombia, I fell in love with Andean music. I enjoyed listening to it. Little by little, I met incredible people and began to listen to songs by great Latin American artists like Simón Díaz – from the Llanos –, Atahualpa Yupanqui, Mercedes Sosa...", she recalls.

"Look at this lectern, it's historic. It's very beautiful", says Josep Pons (Puig-reig, 1957). He is in the pit of the Liceu, the chosen space for a press conference "special and sensitive", as Víctor Garcia de Gomar, artistic director of the Rambla theatre, says. Pons is bidding farewell to the musical direction of the Gran Teatre del Liceu after fourteen years of work. The farewell is twofold. On the one hand, from the pit, with Falstaff, Verdi's opera which is performed there until July 19th; on the other hand, from the stage of the Liceu, conducting with Symphony No. 8 by Mahler on July 24th.

The experience of some artists and the repertoires performed have made the difference in the sixteenth edition of the Cruïlla festival. The nostalgia card has won because Suede, Pixies, The Black Crowes and David Byrne have offered good concerts, some even extraordinary, and because the public has responded positively to the proposal. In total, Cruïlla 2026 has gathered 73,000 attendees, 9,000 fewer than last year, when a record of 82,000 was reached. But the decline is not explained by the, let's say, nostalgic days of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, but because Wednesday, the day intended for the younger audience, has been less successful: Halsey, the headliner for Wednesday, only attracted 9,000 people, half of the 18,000 that Gracie Abrams had in 2025.

David Byrne has reflected on music with great wisdom. For example, in the book How music works (2012), available in Spanish by Reservoir Books. And the staging of his concerts must necessarily be the result of very deep reflection on how to accompany live music. When he was part of Talking Heads, he already promoted scenic gestures that sought new ways of presenting himself, and in his solo career he has gone further. He already showed it at Cruïlla in 2018, and he returned on Friday with an evolution of the format seen eight years ago: an empty stage, without tool nor fixed instrumental elements; only giant screens that can project images or simply light up with colors, and a dozen musicians-dancers, or rather, choreographed musicians, each moving with their instrument, including the percussionists, the cellist, and the keyboardist. Everyone dressed in blue, like the specialized operators of a secret laboratory, or like the medical staff of a clinic run by a minimalism enthusiast.

The devil would have approved of what happened on Friday at Cruïlla. On the Estrella Damm stage, The Black Crowes delivered an hour and a half of rock'n'roll, the devil's music. Thousands of spectators accepted the deal, and past eight in the evening they welcomed the band of brothers Chris and Rich Robinson with the desire to have a good time. The devil, satisfied to see the lineup, was merciful and sent clouds and a breeze to quell the heatwave. It didn't end the sweltering heat, but even the devil has his limits. Since their performance at Sant Jordi Club in 2022, the Atlanta group has released the albums Happiness Bastards (2024) and A Pound of Feathers (2026), but on the tour that brought them to Barcelona, the repertoire focuses mainly on the first two albums: Shake Your Money Maker (1990) and The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion (1992). In other words, in line with Thursday's 90s nostalgia with Pixies, Suede, and Garbage. Of course, with fewer people on Friday.

Barcelona's major festivals are children of the nineties of the 20th century. So is Cruïlla, even though its first edition took place in the 21st century. Its director, Jordi Herreruela, lived the most impetuous period of his youth precisely in that era. Therefore, it is not surprising that Cruïlla's programming reserves space for the music of those years, as is the case with Primavera Sound and Sónar. Every generation has the right to build its own nostalgia, but in Barcelona's macro-festivals, the memory of the nineties seems to carry more weight than others. The programming for Cruïlla's second day, with Suede, Pixies, and Garbage on the main stages of the Parc del Fòrum, can be interpreted as a tribute to the generation that has already passed fifty.

The Barcelona soprano Maria Miró has four dates at the Liceu, where she interprets the role of Nannetta in the opera Falstaff, by Verdi, on July 10, 13, 16 and 19. "I love debuting papers", says Miró, who debuted at the Liceu in 2013 in the cantata Atlantis by Manuel de Falla and Ernesto Halffter. He returned that same year with the role Cinderella, by Massenet, and later to The Two Foscari (2015) and The Troubadour (2017), both by Verdi.

953,049 people passed through the Palau de la Música in 2025, 93,000 more than in 2024. The 678 scheduled concerts had 555,750 spectators; the modernist building received 358,519 visitors, and 38,780 people attended different own and private acts and events. Joaquim Uriach (Barcelona, 1966), president of the Orfeó Català Association and the Orfeó Català Foundation - Palau de la Música Catalana, speaks about these record figures and the institution's present.

A trio, a more reduced format than in previous visits to Catalonia; with The Police's repertoire well represented; overflowing with charisma, and with his voice challenging the tuning at times. That's how Sting carried out Tuesday's concert at the Jardins de Pedralbes, within the Les Nits d’Occident festival. The audience, who had paid up to 300 euros, was up to par from the start. With an ovation, they received the first notes of Message in a bottle, one of the many songs by The Police that he is playing on this tour, which he shares with guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Chris Maas. The British singer and bassist, 74 years old and with a jovial appearance, quickly realized the spectators' good predisposition and let them sing the first verses of Englishman in New York. “Catalonia!”, exclaimed Sting at the end of a song that he performed with more rock clamor than jazzy flourishes.

May the sea breeze alleviate the heatwave. This must be the dream of the spectators who trust in the sixteenth edition of the Cruïlla Festival, which takes place from July 8 to 11 at the Parc del Fòrum. In general, the artistic DNA of recent years is maintained; in fact, there are groups that have already passed through the festival before, and salsa proposals like those in 2022, 2023, and 2024 are missed. The main change in this edition has to do with the arrangement of the stages, with a new one in the area closest to the port of the Fòrum where the comedy programming will unfold, which includes names like Oye Sherman, Manel Vidal, Marc Sarrats, Ignatius Farray, and Charlie Pee. Tickets for Cruïlla 2026 can still be purchased at different prices: 171.48 euros for the four-day pass; 160.934 euros for the three-day pass (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday); 150.29 euros for the Friday and Saturday pass, and 137.68 euros for the Thursday and Friday pass or for the Thursday and Saturday pass. Daily tickets cost 81.50 euros (Wednesday), 86.80 euros (Thursday), and 95.34 euros (Friday and Saturday). Below is a selection of ten recommended concerts.

"Megadeth!, Megadeth!", shouted the Rock Fest audience past midnight on Friday. There was a desire to see the North American band and to thank its leader, the Californian guitarist Dave Mustaine, for his service to the cause of heavy metal for forty years. Everything suggested that the concert in Santa Coloma de Gramenet was part of Megadeth's farewell tour, but Mustaine himself clarified on Friday that it is the tour for the latest album, Megadeth (2026), and that the final tour will be the next one. In any case, the dedication of the audience that traveled to Can Zam park was one that fosters devotion.

"It is a luxury to be able to have this farewell", says maestro Josep Pons at the press conference, who this month closes his stage as musical director of the Gran Teatre del Liceu after fourteen years of work. It is a farewell in two phases: conducting the orchestra of the Rambla theatre in the eight performances of Verdi's opera Falstaff (from July 9 to 19) and in the concert dedicated to Mahler's Symphony No. 8 'The Thousand' (July 24). "I tend to hold back my emotions", says Pons, who does admit that he feels very happy. "I believe that the job we were entrusted with, we have done. We have created a family, and we are lucky to be among good people. I am very pleased to finish at a peak moment", he assures, just after explaining that "working in an opera house is like entering a convent: it is an absolute absorption, you stop living". Happy and grateful, Pons, however, does not want the farewell to overshadow the performances of Falstaff. "Maestro Pons's last staged title, although he will have a title every year, at least", clarifies the theatre's artistic director, Víctor Garcia de Gomar, who recalls that from next season Pons will be honorary musical director of the Liceu.

From cathedral to cathedral. The music that sounded in Barcelona's between 1705 and 1713 during the reign of Archduke Charles of Austria stars in the inaugural concert of the 15th edition of the Pyrenean Early Music Festival (FeMAP), which takes place this Friday, July 3rd, at the Cathedral of Santa Maria de la Seu d'Urgell (Alt Urgell), and is also scheduled for the church of Santa Cecília de Molló (Ripollès) on Saturday, July 4th, and the sanctuary of El Miracle in Riner (Solsonès) on Sunday, July 5th.

The Nights of the West in the Jardins de Pedralbes began on Wednesday with the characteristic scent of carefree summer festivals, especially the so-called festivals boutique with village. The group chosen to open the 2026 edition was Taburete, the band of Willy Bárcenas and Antón Carreño. Everything within a fairly moderate order: among the more than 2,300 people who filled the venue, there was only one spectator waving a discreet constitutional Spanish flag, and the chants against Pedro Sánchez that have been frequent in other Taburete concerts were not heard. Sense at the upper, so who knows if because they already assume that the Spanish president has his days numbered or because Pedralbes has been weighed.

Change at the helm of the Conservatori del Liceu. Maria Serrat, who has been its general director since 1999, hands over the reins to Iñaki Sandoval (Pamplona, 1974), who is currently the dean of the Hong Kong Music School. "I will join the conservatory in December," Sandoval announced at a press conference at the Ca l'Isidre restaurant, in Barcelona's Raval neighborhood. For Sandoval, this new responsibility is like "a return home." "My connection with the Conservatori del Liceu is intimate and foundational. I started my musical studies in Pamplona at the age of 8, but it was a scholarship from the government of Navarra that allowed me, as a young person, to travel to Barcelona. Here I supplemented my higher studies in classical piano at this very institution, and I began my training in jazz at AULA de Música Moderna. Years later, I had the privilege of directing it, of founding the Jazz Department of the Conservatory and of promoting its postgraduate studies. Barcelona is a city I deeply love and where I have experienced some of the happiest moments of my life," explained Sandoval, who has also undertaken academic work in Estonia.