L’Auditori presents the 25-26 season

L’Auditori presents the launch of the 25–26 season “Renaixements” with Víctor Medem already serving as the new director of the venue, and Maestro Ludovic Morlot, principal conductor of the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and National Orchestra of Catalonia (OBC).

The Medem-Morlot tandem will also take on the opening concert, which will be held on October 3rd and is dedicated to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, conducted by Morlot himself and featuring the voices of soprano Joyce El-Khoury — making her debut at L’Auditori and with the Orfeó Català.

“Renaixements” is a season that invites us to explore new beginnings, ruptures, and transformations that have marked the history of music and humanity. Social transformations, new technological developments, access to knowledge, conflicts, migration and climate crises, and the exchanges inherent to globalization have all driven artistic and aesthetic rethinking over time, gifting us with iconic compositions that will be heard throughout this season across the different concert series at L’Auditori.

THE MUSIC THAT CHANGED THE COURSE OF HISTORY

The 25–26 season, the fourth with Ludovic Morlot leading the OBC, will open with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, a revolutionary Romantic piece that opened a new aesthetic world, grounded in a freer idea of the artist in relation to form and concept. The season will also feature works such as Dvořák’s New World Symphony, a farewell to old Europe, and Bartók’s popular Concerto for Orchestra, written shortly after he arrived in the U.S. fleeing WWII. It will also pay tribute to figures like Pau Casals, Conxita Badia, and Josep Valls i Royo, artists marked by exile and the pursuit of peace far from home.

The season will also dive into repertoire that broke new ground, such as the monumental love stories of Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie, Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, or Bernstein’s West Side Story, among many others. It will highlight bold innovators of their time like Schönberg, Mahler, Debussy, and Gershwin, who all drove new waves of artistic and aesthetic rethinking.

BANDA MUNICIPAL DE BARCELONA: 140 YEARS OF MUSIC

Next season marks the 140th anniversary of the Barcelona Municipal Band, a major milestone. Among the celebrations, L’Auditori has commissioned new works from prominent Catalan composers — Elisenda Fàbregas, Albert Guinovart, Hèctor Parra, and Marc Timón — written specially for the occasion and to be premiered by the Band itself in Sala 1 Pau Casals. A commemorative concert is also planned for March 1, 2026, featuring, for the first time in history, the Escolania de Montserrat, and a premiere by Parra.

The complete 25-26 season program is available at the L’Auditori web.