There is a desire to play in the mischievous gaze of the Galician stage director Marta Pazos. More than provoking, she seeks to surprise. "Laughter originates in the unexpected," she recalls at a press conference regarding the new production of Le nozze di Figaro (1786), the first masterpiece by the tandem formed by Mozart and the poet Lorenzo Da Ponte. The production, directed by Pazos and with Giovanni Antonini leading the orchestra, will have fourteen performances from June 4 to 21. "I am having a great time in this production by Marta that surprised us so much at first," assures the soprano from El Montsià, Sara Blanch, Susanna in a first cast shared with the Italian bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni (Figaro), the Russian soprano Julia Lezhneva (Cherubino), the Italian baritone Andrè Schuen (Count Almaviva), and the Guatemalan soprano Adriana González (Countess Almaviva), among others. "I have sung the role of Figaro many times, and I have found a very fresh production, with a very new approach," exclaims Pisaroni, who is performing in substitution of baritone Konstantin Krimmel, who is out due to a foot injury. Everyone agrees: they are having a lot of fun. "And I hope it will be a success," says Schuen, who is finally debuting at the Liceu in an operatic role after having given many lied recitals around the country. after having given many lied recitals around the country.

There is a gratifying solidity, in Nacho Vegas (Gijón, 1974) from the album Vidas semipreciosas (Oso Polita, 2026), recorded in Catalonia and with collaborations by Albert Pla and Rodrigo Cuevas. With a rock that touches on folk and melodic song, he crafts a repertoire that includes some of the best songs from the Asturian musician's career, also in Asturian. Furthermore, it includes "memory capsules" with the voices of victims of political and labor conflicts (Javitxu Aijón, Anna Gabriel and Adur Ramirez), because, after all, he is "an internationalist red, son of Cristina Vegas, anti-fascist", as he sings in Fíu. This Saturday, May 30, he performs at Sala Apolo in Barcelona (9 PM), well accompanied by Miren Arbaiza, Joseba Irazoki, Hans Laguna, Manu Molina and Ferran Resines.

"A lot is demanded in a very short time. It's the dictatorship of speed: you have to release a song, and then another, and a video, and do a promotion... I don't know if it's very productive. Perhaps the approach should be different," says Axel Magnani, La Pegatina's trumpeter. "And the platforms ask you for more songs because they position you better, and collaborations. It has been conveyed to us that we have to be viral and stand out continuously," adds singer Adrià Salas. "This time we've made an album cooked more slowly, without the stress of having to go into the studio every now and then," explains guitarist and singer Rubén Sierra. They come from almost another era. In fact, La Pegatina was born over twenty years ago in Montcada i Reixac, on the street and under the shelter of that quintessential mestizo Barcelona sound. And they seem to be pursuing precisely that foundational spirit on the album Fuego del barrio (Calaverita-Música Global), which this Friday, May 29th, they present live at the Poble Espanyol.

The Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov and the American soprano Nadine Sierra are two of the prominent names at the 46th Torroella de Montgrí Festival, which will be held from July 31 to August 21. The motto "Love leaves a trace" shelters a program that the festival director, Montse Faura, assures will "not be a simple succession of concerts, but a constellation of experiences." The trace, says Faura, is "that which remains after a true artistic experience; that which modifies us, which continues to act within us long after the last note has disappeared." It is the sensation that she hopes a dozen concerts will provoke, most of them at the Auditori Espai Ter.

"This is popular song made now", says Maria del Mar Bonet before performing S'aigo no, one of the songs from the magnificent album L'aigua no cansa that she has just released. When she sings the verse "Make all Valencians be able to return to their homes", the audience at the Palau de la Música applauds the gesture that recalls the victims of the 2024 flood. And the applause is louder when she says "May the responsible politicians who never served any purpose and have made the disaster worse be removed soon". Indeed, popular song made now by a captivating Maria del Mar Bonet, in a state of creative and interpretive grace.

He says he is legendary, a millionaire who hasn't forgotten his neighborhood. And that he is from Puerto Rico, from "P fuckin' R". He proclaims himself king of pop making reggaeton and dembow. And 55,000 people greet him, swept up in an impressive wave of effervescence. “Benito, Benito, Benito!”, they shout. Bad Bunny has just stepped onto the stage of the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys and is already killing it. "}La mudanza" plays as an introduction, and when the salsa dynamite kicks in, the feeling is that the audience hasn't come up to Montjuïc to admire, but to celebrate. Bad Bunny also wants the party to be big, as immense as the musical richness of the album Debí tirar más fotos, and as varied as the rhythms of past hits like Tití me preguntó. For this, he deploys resources with the generosity afforded by the income from sold-out tickets, which in Barcelona cost between 83.30 and 230 euros (122.80 on the floor).

Bad Bunny can be explained with a single song. It's all there in Nuevayol, the track that opens Debí tirar más fotos (2025), the album that took the Puerto Rican artist to perform at the Super Bowl and to do the tour that goes ¿Cómo Bad Bunny va a ser rey del pop, ey / con reggaetón y dembow?" Well, he is. And with Nuevayol you can dance reggaeton, dembow, and salsa all at once without changing your shoes.

It was a dream that began to come true in December 2021, when Cardinal Omella blessed the M-shaped organ named after Montserrat Torrent. The Barcelona organist premiered it then, but the instrument built by the Blancafort workshop was not yet finished. It lacked a final phase that, once completed, allowed this Monday the official inauguration of a magnificent organ with 50 registers, 3,454 pipes, and three keyboards installed in the choir tribune of the Oratory of Sant Felip Neri, in Barcelona's Gothic Quarter. "We are in the heart of the city, in the heart of Catalonia," said the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, at the beginning of an event that was also a tribute to Montserrat Torrent, "a key figure in Catalan culture, a source of national pride." "This organ is the project of her life, because it was planned sixty years ago, but nothing ends now; a new stage begins now: to bring this fantastic instrument to life," explained Albert Torrens, commissioner of the Year Montserrat Torrent and biographer of the organist.

It was a dream that began to come true December 2021, when Cardinal Omella blessed the M-shaped organ named after Montserrat Torrent. The Barcelona organist already premiered it then, but the instrument built by the Blancafort workshop was not yet finished. A final phase was missing which, once completed, allowed for the official inauguration this Monday of a magnificent organ with 50 stops, 3,454 pipes, and three keyboards installed in the choir loft of the Oratory of San Felipe Neri, in Barcelona's Gothic Quarter. "We are in the heart of the city, in the heart of Catalonia," said the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, at the beginning of an event that was also a tribute to Montserrat Torrent, "a key figure in Catalan culture, a pride of the country." "This organ is the project of her life, because it was conceived sixty years ago, but nothing ends now; a new stage begins now: to bring activity to this fantastic instrument," explained Albert Torrens, commissioner of the Year Montserrat Torrent and biographer of the organist.

Fermented grain alcohol is the great lubricant of music in Catalonia. Estrella Damm is a strategic sponsor of festivals such as Primavera Sound, Sónar, Cruïlla, Canet Rock, Cabró Rock, L’Acústica, Share, the Barcelona Jazz Festival... and also the Mercat de Música Viva de Vic. "Without Estrella Damm, this festival wouldn't happen," said François Jozic, the new director of Sónar, a few days ago.François Jozic, the new director of Sónar. Therefore, it is not surprising that music was the main protagonist of the celebration of Estrella Damm's 150th anniversary held on Saturday at the Parc del Fòrum. Eight groups responded to the brewery's call and performed, divided into two stages, between 3:45 PM and 11 PM. Curiously, at the anniversary of a birth, two bands that are breaking up this year participated: Love of Lesbian, who announced an indefinite hiatus, and Oques Grasses, who will bid farewell to the stage with four concerts at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys in October.

"The best prize is that the music is played, but, obviously, I am very grateful for the prizes. And this one makes me very happy because the surprise was tremendous," explains the composer Benet Casablancas (Sabadell, 1959). The award in question is the XX SGAE Prize for Ibero-American Music Tomás Luis de Victoria, which he will receive on May 26 in the Manuel de Falla hall at the SGAE headquarters in Madrid. "May it be welcome. We will try to be up to the task," he says during a conversation in which unforgettable memories emerge, such as the "fabulous" recording of Set escenes de Hamlet with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, with a juicy and quite significant anecdote about a ghost verse; the meeting with George Benjamin in the glorious days of the Teatre Lliure Chamber Orchestra in the early nineties, and, further back, "the small orchestra" that Casablancas put together "as a youngster" and with which he performed the central nocturne of Vistes al mar, by Eduard Toldrà, in front of Frederic Mompou, Xavier Montsalvatge and Xavier Turull, "a moment when the history of Catalan music passed through Sabadell".

Known the artistic programming, which was announced a few weeks ago, with headliners like The Prodigy, Sónar announced this Wednesday the novelties of the edition that will take place on June 18, 19 and 20. It will be the first without Sergio Caballero, Enric Palau and Ricard Robles, the trio that founded the festival in 1994. It will also be the first without a separate day and night offering, because all artistic offerings will be hosted at Fira Gran Via in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat. And the second since the pro-Israeli fund KKR became the main owner of the festival. The new team led by the Belgian François Jozic presented the novelties at a press conference at the Antiga Fàbrica Estrella Damm. "Damm is the historic sponsor of Sónar without which this festival would not happen," said Jozic, who assures that the new Sónar will be "more Sónar than ever", "rethought, renewed, but faithful to its DNA", and that they are working to make it "friendlier and more comfortable". The economic support from public administrations is also maintained: the Department of Culture of the Generalitat, the Institute of Culture of the Barcelona City Council, Turisme de Barcelona and the L'Hospitalet de Llobregat City Council.

[The photograph accompanying this review was provided by promoter Live Nation, who did not specify which concert on the tour it corresponds to. Eric Clapton is not accrediting press photographers on this tour]

"I feel respected and valued, and at the same time isolated," says Clara Viñals (Lleida, 1990). Always at the helm of the Renaldo & Clara project, for more than a decade she has been spreading talent and insight in songs that address love and pop, avoiding clichés and lazy rhymes. She now releases the album L'encant (Primavera Labels, 2026), nine songs that validate the perception already conveyed by L'amor fa calor (2020) and La boca aigua (2023), albums that mixed urban rhythms with pop sensibility and a firm poetic delicacy. "I am very satisfied with the trajectory, and many people, also many musicians, have told me they really like what I do, but there is also a bit of an outsider", she explains. It's not a complaint, but an acknowledgment of Renaldo & Clara's position in the Catalan musical context: an artistic project that offers a quality refuge and the possibility of listening to love songs as unique as Gener, Tinc paraules, Amb tu podria estar and Quines coses de mi. A refuge surely shared by other artists like Mallorcan Maria Jaume, and which deserves more popular recognition.

"Peace is the guiding thread of the 2026-2027 season," says Joaquim Uriach, president of the Fundació Orfeó Català-Palau de la Música Catalana. "Music has a very powerful social and civic function; it creates a space for meeting, listening, and mutual understanding. It must be a place of refuge, of solace, and of hope," he adds. To illustrate this purpose, Uriach cites three names that will have special relevance in the Palau de la Música's calendar: Pau Casals, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Johann Sebastian Bach, all three pillars of a "very ambitious" season with its own programming that includes 212 concerts, in addition to 157 family and school concerts. Some of these are part of the main cycle offerings presented a few weeks ago, and others were made public this Monday at a press conference by Joan Oller and Mercedes Conde, the institution's general director and associate artistic director, respectively.

Rotisserie chickens. Dolphin-shaped balloons. Rolling on a wet floor. A rattle with bells. Songs performed with a gag. Absurd messages ("I sell an Opel Corsa"). Insurrectionary slogans ("Let's smash it all", like a Quimi Portet song). Dadaist customs. Rhymes connected to an immortal memory. Pre-modern sense of humor. And a Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium packed to the rafters so that El Último de la Fila could settle a debt with nostalgia thirty years after Manolo García and Quimi Portet went their separate ways, and ten years after the ephemeral stage reunion of both in tribute concerts to Los Burros and Los Rápidos.

Roast chicken. Dolphin-shaped balloons. Rolled around on a wet floor. A rattle with bells. Songs performed in a tunic. Absurd messages ("For Sale: Opel Corsa"). Insurrectionary slogans ("We trample everything", like a song by Quimi Portet). Dadaist costumbrismo. Ballads connected to an immortal memory. Pre-modern sense of humor. And a Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium packed to the rafters so that El Último de la Fila could settle a debt with nostalgia thirty years after Manolo García and Quimi Portet went their separate ways, and ten years after the ephemeral stage reunion of both at the tribute concerts for Los Burros and Los Rápidos.

The National Opera of Paris, La Scala of Milan, the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the Royal Opera House of Covent Garden, the Salzburg Festival, the Peralada Festival... The 2026 agenda is quite eloquent about the magnificent artistic moment of soprano Sara Blanch (Darmós, Ribera d'Ebre, 1989). Until May 9th, she is performing the leading female role in Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande at La Scala, a good testament to the breadth of repertoire that a singer forged in bel canto is tackling, and who at the same time has authoritatively entered the universes of Gluck, Mozart, Richard Strauss, and Britten, among others. "I like to work on different repertoires, as long as they are suitable for my voice, because that way I explore possibilities. It's about looking at the evolution of the voice and where I can go according to the physical and vocal sensations of the moment," she explains to el ARA by phone from Milan. Undoubtedly, 2026 is Sara Blanch's year, a more than deserved reward for the work done and what she can achieve.

There is an encouraging impetus on the new album by Dan Peralbo and el Comboi. Obviously, the name makes the thing, and the title Quin goig (Montgrí, 2026) already predisposes to joy, and the suspicion is confirmed as soon as some melodic rock songs play that continue the good news from the album of two years ago. They will share the joy with the public on a tour that begins this Friday, May 1, on the stairs of the Girona cathedral (7:30 PM), as part of the Strenes Festival. Dan Peralbo (Torelló, 1998), singer and guitarist of the group completed by Albert Rams, Pol Piti Villegas and Aleix Jimmy Vilarrasa, talks about all of this, and also about a dark memory.

Manolo García and Quimi Portet once again shared the same stage yesterday in Fuengirola, as reported by the Efe agency. Ten years after the tribute concerts to Los Burros and Los Rápidostribute concerts to Los Burros and Los RápidosOn Saturday, 18,500 people filled the Maresnostrum Fuengirola and received the group with an ovation. As reported by the Efe agency, the celebratory atmosphere was constant during the more than two hours of performance. The concert began with two songs by Los Burros: