"This is a concert that justifies the narrative of a band with 25 years of history," said the lead singer of Love of Lesbian, Santi Balmes, a while before going out on the Estrella Damm stage at Bogatell beach in Barcelona, the most crowded of the La Mercè festivities. Love of Lesbian are folding, or taking an indefinite break according to musical newspeak. They still have about ten performances scheduled in Spain and Mexico, but Saturday's at Bogatell was the last one in Barcelona.

Salvador Alemany (Barcelona, 1944) concludes a ten-year period as president of the Board of Trustees of the Gran Teatre del Liceu. The relay will be taken up by Helena Guardans, once she is ratified by the board on Friday. It will be the same day as the inauguration of the 2026-2027 season with the opera Aida, and with the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko as the star.

A cry of admiration and wonder is heard. "Wow!", exclaims a person wearing mixed reality glasses. "How amazing", they insist. They have just entered the so-called XR Workshop of the exhibition Gaudí Code. An unprecedented experience, which can be visited until January 8 at the new Espai Imagina by Mediapro, at number 177 Diagonal in Barcelona. Before the cry, they had been browsing and virtually touching a tool that reproduces one of the techniques Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) used to design the structure of the Sagrada Família... and then virtual reality shows them a dizzying fall through the temple's nave. Wow!, indeed. Theory and practice in two movements. It is, without a doubt, one of the most spectacular moments of an exhibition curated by Galdric Santana, director of the Gaudí Chair at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), and developed by Mediapro Xperiences, which has invested three million euros to create the exhibition and launch this new exhibition space in Barcelona. Tickets for Gaudí Code cost 17.50 euros (Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday), 23 euros (Saturday and Sunday), and 12.50 euros (Monday). Those for children aged 4 to 12: 13.50, 18.50, and 12.50 euros. Children up to 3 years old enter for free.

"It has been the best concert of our lives", said singer and guitarist Adri Bertran on Saturday at the end of the performance by the group Crim at the Mercat de Música Viva de Vic. The band from Tarragona projected the forcefulness of punk-rock with an impeccable execution. Even Bertran's slight hoarseness contributed to making the concert at the cathedral stage more exciting, in front of an audience fully committed to the cause from head to toe. The emotional dimension was very important. Crim announced on Wednesday that they are quitting, that after sixteen years there is too much "accumulated wear and tear" due to "the demand" of a music industry that "is a mood crusher that dries out the lemons that used to be juicy". The group will call it quits next year after a few farewell concerts included in the tour for the album Futur medieval (BCore, 2025). With this context, they performed on Saturday in Vic.

The narcotic majesty of Arctic Nights closed Nacho Vegas's concert at the Mercat de Música Viva de Vic on Friday. It is the song that contains the title of the Asturian musician's second album, Music boxes that are hard to stop (2003). And it played at the Teatre l'Atlàntida in a very special format: as a trio of piano, two guitars, and vocals, with the imposing contribution of the Sant Medir Choir, about fifty voices at the service of a dozen songs, a conjunction of art, emotion, love, and politics. As Vegas said, the insistence of the Mercat's management convinced him to prepare a performance outside the script of the tour for the album the album Semi-precious lives (2026), which passed through the Sala Apolo in Barcelona. And also outside the script of the Mercat itself, which prioritizes previews of proposals so that music programmers know what is on offer before hiring them. Or perhaps not so outside the script. The inaugural show on Wednesday wondered about what live music is. And these days there have been all kinds of comments that have enriched the debate opened by that Non-concert. But one element was missing. "Without you, concerts and music would not exist," said Vegas, addressing the audience filling the theater.

Music promoter Guim Cifré has died this Wednesday in a traffic accident at the age of 34. Highly esteemed among Barcelona's jazz community, he was artistic programmer at the Milano Jazz Club, on Ronda Universitat in Barcelona, and just this week he was beginning a new chapter at the helm of the renovated Jazzsí in the Raval.

The management of the Mercat de Música Viva de Vic had fueled the mystery by announcing a special opening show: Non concerto, whose stage director, Lucia del Greco, had not wanted to reveal any details. Only the purpose had emerged, to raise questions about what live music is or should be, and the musical material, the album Una lunghissima ombra (2025) by the Italian musician Andrea Laszlo De Simone. The result lived up to expectations, because with elegance and respect for the music it shot at the waterline of live music: the pact according to which the audience admits that what sounds is the result of the action of people playing an instrument. Daring and bewilderment at the same time in a magnificent staging.

"I live in a country, the United States, which together with Israel has attacked my country, Iran," says visual artist Shirin Neshat (Qazvin, 1957). She explains this during a break in rehearsals for the production of the opera Aida, by Verdi, for which she is the stage director and which will inaugurate the 2026-2027 season of the Gran Teatre del Liceu on September 25th. Seventeen performances will be held until October 15th, including one for those under 35 on September 23rd. "Aida is an Ethiopian princess in love with Radames, an Egyptian general who will invade her country. And the taxes I pay in the United States have been used to attack Iran, where my relatives live," recalls Neshat, known for works about women in the Middle East, "situated between political tyranny and religious fanaticism, who try to defend both their individuality and their humanity"; women who, in addition to contexts of oppression, also suffer from Western gazes fueled by orientalist stereotypes.

Is the cult of the musical idol sidelining the music? Does a concert-goer get excited by the music and the way it is being performed on stage, or simply by being in front of their favorite artist or band? Do the stage elements hinder or amplify the songs? If the music is the most important thing, is it legitimate to put tickets on sale without visibility? Is live music better experienced individually or as a collective experience? Does it make any sense to follow a performance 30 meters from the stage while only looking at screens? Is it necessary to see the artist playing to enjoy a concert?

Ronnie Wood, guitarist for the Rolling Stones for fifty years, and previously with the group Faces, conveyed the feeling of doing exactly what he likes most: playing rock'n'roll in a broad sense of the word, accompanied by a group of musicians in sync and with a very well-chosen repertoire. Before he took the stage at the Razzmatazz venue in Barcelona, it is possible that the audience, who had paid 165 euros for the ticket, would have been satisfied just having a legend in front of them without asking for anything extraordinary. However, Wood turned the situation around. It only took him four songs to turn what could have been a pleasant evening with a 79-year-old veteran into a splendid concert. And the audience, who had already welcomed him with endearing affection, began to celebrate the music.

Soprano Sara Blanch has a toothbrush in three different places: Bologna, Barcelona, and her parents' house in Darmós, the town in the Ribera d'Ebre region where she was born in 1989. "I have a base in Barcelona and another in Bologna, which is where my partner is. When I have work in Italy and Central Europe, I stay more in Bologna, because there is a good connection. And if I work in France or Spain, I stay in Barcelona and I am closer to my village and my parents' house," she explains. And she has plenty of work. Sara Blanch is living the best moment of an artistic career that has long been gathering praise.

The success of the first edition of the Catalunya Triomfant festival, on September 11, 2025, spurred the promoters Hello Cleveland and Blood Fire Death to provide continuity to a historic event for Catalan metal music. And like last year, the Paral·lel 62 venue in Barcelona will host half a dozen bands on the evening of the National Day starting at 5:30 p.m. This Friday's edition, moreover, features the draw of the return of the Barcelona quartet Foscor after a few years away from the stage. "We will recover songs that we have not played live for a long time from our first three albums," they explain. The purpose of their concert (at 9:10 p.m.) is to celebrate the group's 25th anniversary by conveying "the intensity, the density, and that tragic music" and with a repertoire sung exclusively in Catalan.

The Association of Theatre Companies of Catalonia (Adetca) offers data on Barcelona's theatres every September. And this year, for the first time, it also provides data for the whole country thanks to an initiative by the Department of Culture. Added to the figures collected by Adetca in Barcelona are now those of the municipal and private venues in the rest of the country. The result: in the 2025-2026 season, Catalan theatres have gathered 4,081,780 spectators and have collected 115,569,804 euros, with an occupancy of 67%, in 16,988 performances of 2,829 shows.

The good run of Catalan artists at Olympic venues continues. This year, after Rosalía filled the Palau Sant Jordi four times and El Último de la Fila played the Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium twice, now it is Aitana's turn, with everything sold out for four concerts at the Palau Sant Jordi: the first one this Friday and the other three on September 5, 7, and 8. And in October, Oques Grasses will say goodbye with the feat of four performances at the stadium.

"I will have to make sure I haven't killed myself", writes musician Josele Santiago (Madrid, 1965) in the book Desde el jergón (Contra, 2026). The singer and guitarist of the group Los Enemigos signs a musical autobiography extraordinary for what it tells, for how it is written, for the tone, for the point of view and for the way music, life and dreams walk together in the text. Each chapter is born from a song by Los Enemigos, first-rate material as befits one of the best Spanish-language rock bands. And each chapter grows sentence by sentence, combining personal and social biography. There is rage and disappointment, also wonder and amazement, various pains and passion. And love is not lacking, like the one that exploded when he met the Barcelona-based screenwriter Núria Torreblanca. "And I ended up settling in Catalonia", he says, "madly in love".

One of the great names in Catalan cinema and theater, Francesc Garrido, died this Sunday night at the age of 56, as confirmed by the actor's circle to ARA. Garrido was known for his roles in films such as Smoking room, Mar adentro and Balandrau, vent salvatge, and series such as La sala, Vida privada and Jaguar. He also had a solid theater career, with notable performances in productions such as Àlex Rigola's a propòsit d'The Master and Margarita, by Bulgakov; The Video Nobody Sees, by Martin Crimp, under the direction of Carme Portaceli; The Alchemist, the adaptation that Michael De Cock made of Opus nigrum by Marguerite Yourcenar, as well as participating in different works by Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Ibsen.

Josep Montero, the leader of the group Oques Grasses, will be in charge of choosing the songs for the Mercè Pyromusical, which this year will not be held in Montjuïc as in previous editions, but at Nova Icària beach. According to the Barcelona City Council, for the show that will take place on September 27th as the closing of the city's main festival, Montero has prepared "an eclectic playlist with a proposal open to various styles and sensibilities, and with a prominent presence of Catalan music". As usual, the songs will be revealed as they are played on the night of the Pyromusical.

Laia Giralt dances in front of thousands of people every time there is a concert by The Weeknd. For example, she will do so on September 1st at the Estadi Lluís Companys in Barcelona, because since 2022 she has been part of the Canadian artist's tour's dance team. Born in Vilanova i la Geltrú, trained in London, and residing in Los Angeles, Giralt takes advantage of a free moment to speak with ARA by phone.

Singer-songwriter Dolly Parton died this Tuesday at the age of 80. This was announced by her family in a video shared on social media. A country music legend and one of the most iconic artists of her generation, Parton leaves behind a legacy that includes songs like Jolene and I will always love you. A few days ago, the singer herself explained to People magazine that she had to cancel some concerts due to health problems she had neglected while caring for her husband, Carl Thomas Dean, who died in March 2025 at the age of 82. Unfortunately, she didn't make it.

"It is the first time that the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra has undertaken a tour like this, and it will not be easy for it to be repeated," said Katharina Wagner, great-granddaughter of Richard Wagner and director of the Wagnerian festival held every summer in Bavaria, a few weeks ago. The tour in question begins on August 29 at the Palau de la Música, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Peralada Festival, and will then go through Santander, Seville, Valencia, and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The baton will be held by Pablo Heras-Casado (Granada, 1977), who made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival in 2023 conducting Parsifal, and where in 2028 he will conduct the complete tetralogy of The Ring of the Nibelung. He is "one of the most recognized international batons currently," as Joan Oller, general director of the Palau de la Música, recalls. Heras-Casado, who retains Catalan from his years of training and work in Catalonia – which he speaks and writes fluently – speaks to ARA by phone during a break from the intense summer activity in Bayreuth.