Between 19 March and 11 April, Barcelona is hosting the sixth edition of the Barcelona Overture Classical City Festival, a major event in the world of classical performance and lyrical music involving the city’s main venues. More than five hundred artists (many of them classics and others who collaborate in the performances, such as Sílvia Pérez Cruz, in the picture. Photo: Alex Rademakers) are part of a programme you won’t want to miss.

The Barcelona Obertura Ciutat de Clàssica festival is an initiative born from the union of the three most important classical music venues in the city, the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the Palau de la Música Catalana and L’Auditori, with the aim of promoting the city of Barcelona internationally through a classical music programme offered by these venues and many more. 

In addition to the usual stages, a series of unique venues (Refugi 307, Collserola Tower and Monastery of Pedralbes, among others) are added, so that we can see the city through a different prism and establish links between music and asphalt. The Ciutat de Clàssica festival is part of the Barcelona Obertura project, promoted by the aforementioned musical facilities in the city and coordinated by Turisme de Barcelona.

The festival, which is held with the support of Ajuntament de Barcelona and Ibercamera, the Franz Schubert Philharmonia and the Conservatori del Liceu, will offer 23 free concerts and 18 paying concerts. Five hundred musicians and twenty-six stages are part of the programme.

Thus, the main concerts will be held in the three aforementioned venues. At the Gran Teatre del Liceu, events such as the performances of Wagner’s Lohengrin conducted by the composer’s own daughter, Katharina Wagner. At the Palau de la Música Catalana, eight concerts including two passions by Bach, Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony on the bicentenary of the Austrian composer’s birth, or a concert by soprano Diana Damrau with tenor Jonas Kaufmann (two of the best voices of the moment, in case you don’t know) accompanied on piano by Helmut Deutsch (8 April).

The Auditori programmes another eight concerts, starting on 23 March with Tchaikovsky’s Concert for violin, performed by Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya (OBC) with soloist Marc Bouchnov, including such highlights as Debussy’s La Mer, with Ludovic Morlot at the baton, and the world premiere of Feliu Gasull’s Domini màgic, with Sílvia Pérez Cruz as soloist (28 and 29 March); in the photo). The programmed concerts end the month of April with dates such as the concert by the baroque orchestra Vespres d’Arnadí dedicated to Carles Baguer (April 1st), the soloists Janine Jansen (violin) and Denis Kozhukhin (piano; April 8th) and the Orquesta Nacional de España (ONE) conducted by David Afkham (April 11th).

But, in addition to these major concerts, there will be a further twenty or so events spread throughout the ten districts of Barcelona. Among the venues, unique spots such as Antiga Fàbrica Estrella Damm, Casa Batlló, the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Casa Seat and the Gabriel García Márquez Library, as well as many others which will be incorporating new spaces in the future: from the Collserola Tower to the Faculty of Law of the University of Barcelona, passing through Refugi 307, Casa de l’Aigua de Trinitat Nova, Parròquia del Crist Redemptor, Dipòsit del Rei Martí, Monestir de Pedralbes or Biblioteca Jaume Fuster.

In all these venues you will find concerts by two hundred artists, including Cecilia Rodríguez, Lluís Calvet and Michèle Bréant, the pianists Llum Colomer, Ot Ortega and Saskia Giorgini, the Quartet Vivancos, the Cor de cambra Noctes, the violinists Patricia Cordero, Bernat Prat, Andrea Garcia and Andrea Santiago, as well as choral ensembles linked to Orfeó Català and orchestral ensembles linked to the Orquestra del Gran Teatre del Liceu, the Banda Municipal de Barcelona, the Conservatori del Liceu and the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona

Among the themes of this year’s programme are the anniversaries of Luciano Berio, Maurice Ravel and Erik Satie, the string sextets, the philharmonic tradition of the Associació Musical Da Camera de Barcelona and the compositions of great musical visionaries.

Remember that some of the tickets for the festival are free and that you can get them on the Barcelona Obertura website from Tuesday 11 March at 10 a.m. (for concerts from 19 to 28 March) and from Sunday 19 March at 10 a.m. (for concerts from 29 March to 11 April).

If you would like more information about the concerts and to book your seats, please consult the website of the Barcelona Obertura Ciutat de Clàssica festival.