L’Auditori de Barcelona is opening its doors to the public with an autumn programme that has been reworked in order to guarantee the safety of both the musicians and the members of the public.

This programme offers, in some cases, programmes and formats which are alternatives to those initially presented and which retains most of the guest artists, with works structured around the artistic theme of the season, which revolves around Creation.

The Barcelona Quartet Biennale will be kicking off the 2020/2021 season with an unprecedented offering that brings together, for four days, between 17 and 20 December, the Cuarteto Casals and other renowned ensembles, such as the Diotima, Dalia, Marmen and Cosmos quartets, among others.

The Barcelona Symphony Orchestra will begin its season on 2 October and will offer 11 concerts with soloists such as Katia Buniatishvili, Emmanuel Pahud, Sebastian Knauer, Vera Martínez Mehner, Abel Tomàs, Maria Florea and Sara Ferrández, among others.

Among the conductors who will be leading the OBC, apart from its head conductor, Kazushi Ono, we must highlight names such as Giedrė Šlekytė, Tabita Berglund, Matthias Pintscher, Lionel Bringuier, Ludovic Morlot, Nuno Cohelo and Josep Caballé Domenech. You can find the details of the OBC’s programming via this link.

The Barcelona Symphony Band will begin its season the following week, on 6 October and will offer 9 concerts during the autumn. Under the baton of its head conductor, José R. Pascual-Vilaplana, and its deputy conductor, Carlos Ramón, it will feature soloists such as Maria Hinojosa and Ignasi Cambra, as well as the guest conductor Salvador Brotons.

Within the programmes to be performed by the Band, one of the highlights is the concert by the group MAP, consisting of Marco Mezquida, Ernesto Aurignac and Ramon Prats, and which will show that listening is a powerful tool with which we can make music grow. This concert will be sharing the bill with the Sessions of L’Auditori and will be performed in collaboration with the Barcelona International Jazz Festival.

Música Antiga will have its own big name with the presence of Jordi Savall, who will be presenting music by Charpentier with Le Concert des Nations and the Capella Reial de Catalunya in December.

As regards Música de Cambra, apart from the Biennale, the season will see the arrival of prestigious names such as Daniel Barenboim who, in a co-production with Bcn Clàssics, will be performing the Diabelli Variations by Beethoven on the piano. The Hagen Quartett will be at L’Auditori de Barcelona to celebrate its 40th anniversary and the trumpeter Mireia Farrés and pianist Mercè Hervada will be presenting their new album at Hall 2, Oriol Martorell.

Música Coral will feature A Ceremony of Carols, one of the most celebrated works by Benjamin Britten, which will be performed by Veus-Cor Infantil Amics de la Unió.

Covid-19 prevented some of last season’s projects from being performed. This was the case with the world premiere of the work White by Pablo Carrascosa, a commission by L’Auditori de Barcelona which can now be seen on 12 October as part of the Sampler Sèries.

Modern music will also be a pillar of the autumn season, with the concert within the Sit Back cycle by two artists of the calibre of Lina and Raül Refree, who will be presenting their new album on 4 December, and Nico Roig, which will be visiting us in October.

As part of the Sessions, we will have Joana Gomila, who will be bringing her latest album to the stage in Hall 3, Tete Montoliu. Xavi Torres who will be revisiting music by Beethoven in a commission by L’Auditori de Barcelona which was supposed to have been performed at the end of the last season and has been rescheduled. We will also be able to enjoy the ESMUC Jazz Project.

Three productions in the Familiars series will bring the programming of these coming months to an end. One of the classics of the house, Ma, me, mi…Mozart!, will once again allow the whole family to enjoy the show together, along with the latest family shows by the regular groups at L’Auditori de Barcelona: L’OBC Dances Ravel and Banda Ampla.
–>Download the L’Auditori Schedule with all the autumn programming here.


Special discounts and autumn season tickets for the OBC and the Band
As occurs every year, L’Auditori de Barcelona celebrates La Mercè with special discounts. This year, up until 24 September you can purchase seats in the autumn programme with a 15% discount. All individual tickets will go on sale on Monday 7 September.

Also available from Monday is the Flat Rate-25 and the new Flat Rate-35, which give access to the whole season for €85 to those under 35 years of age.

These new rates coincide with the launch in the upcoming weeks of L’Auditori Digital, the new streaming and video on demand platform from L’Auditori de Barcelona, which will allow people to enjoy the autumn concerts at any time.
To make them more accessible, L’Auditori de Barcelona has prepared an autumn season ticket for the OBC which allows you to choose from the concert schedule. This means that when tickets are purchased for 3 concerts a discount of 25% will be applied, and the purchase of tickets to five concerts gives a discount of 30% on the total price.

Also, a season ticket for the concerts by the Barcelona Symphony Band has been designed, which offers a discount of 20% on the purchase of four or more concerts in the autumn season.

Safety measures
The concerts will be performed with reduced capacity which will be determined by the Civil Protection guidelines in force. Members of the audience will have to wear a face mask at all times, both when entering the building and during the concert. Also, social distancing must be observed at all times, in accordance with the health authorities’ instructions, and the lift may only be used by a single person at a time. Printed programmes and leaflets will not be distributed, although they can be viewed on the website, and there will be no cloakroom service. The concerts will be performed without an interval.

L’Auditori de Barcelona will make hand gel dispensers available to the audience and the entry and exit will be staggered.

The application of the established safety measures has meant that some projects that were due to be performed this season have been rescheduled to the 2021/2022 season, such as the programmes that the OBC was due to perform featuring Simfonia Turangalila by Olivier Messiaen and Absolute Jest by John Adams. Other concerts, meanwhile, have been cancelled due to the artists being unable to travel, such as the concert by the Australian performer Courtney Barnett, which was to have been part of Sit Back.
–>Check here for the safety measures when accessing L’Auditori de Barcelona.