L’Auditori de Barcelona’s 2020-21 Season will kick off with the first Barcelona International Quartet Biennale, which will take place from 17 to 20 September. It is an initiative by Cuarteto Casals co-curated with L’Auditori de Barcelona, sponsored by the Department of Culture and Barcelona Provincial Council, and carried out in collaboration with Institut Ramon Llull and L’Atlàntida in Vic.

The International Quartet Biennale will be a four-day event featuring some of today’s leading ensembles. The Casals, Artemis, Diotima, Modigliani, MARM, Cosmos and Dalia quartets will take part in a programme hailing Franz Joseph Haydn as one of the main pillars of this genre but also featuring works by acclaimed composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Claude Debussy and Dmitri Shostakovich, among others.

L’Auditori de Barcelona’s proposal will feature eight concerts – four in the morning and four in the evening – with twenty works for string quartet performed by six different ensembles and including two world premieres and one national premiere. The morning concerts will take place in Hall 4, Alicia de Larrocha and will be fully devoted to Haydn’s quartets, while the evening concerts will be held in L’Auditori de Barcelona’s Hall 2, Oriol Martorell.


World premieres and Catalan musical heritage
L’Auditori de Barcelona’s 2020-2021 season kicks off a new three-year artistic project that will start by exploring the concept of The Creation from different points of view. A significant part of this great journey will be devoted to commissions for new works and Catalan musical heritage performances. In relation to this, the Biennale will feature both world and national premieres , some of them inspired by past works. The Quatour Diotima quartet will perform the world premiere of Luis Codera Puzo’s Code is poetry. In addition, the Dalia Quartet will give their first performance of Josep Soler’s String Quartet No. 8 on a theme by Cristóbal de Morales. Similarly, the Artemis Quartett will perform the national premiere of a new work by Pēteris Vasks.

Catalonia’s musical heritage will also feature strongly, with music by some of our most iconic composers, such as Robert Gerhard (this year marks the 50th anniversary of his death) and Jordi Cervelló, as well as Josep Soler, who has already been mentioned above. The new generation of Catalan creators will be represented by one of our most international figures: the composer Raquel García-Tomás.


450 seats at €5 each from 24 to 26 July
Tickets for L’Auditori’s 2020-2021 season opening project will go on sale on 24 July as part of a very special initiative. For 72 hours, 450 seats to the various concerts forming part of the Biennale will be on sale for €5.
The concerts will adhere to the established safety measures in place. All members of the audience will have to wear a face mask at all times, both when entering the building and during the concert. In addition, social distancing will have to be observed in accordance with the health authorities’ instructions, and the use of the lift is restricted to one person at a time. Furthermore, no programmes or leaflets will be handed out – these can be viewed on our website instead – and there will be no cloakroom service. Concerts will be performed without an interval.

L’Auditori de Barcelona will make hand sanitiser dispensers available to the public, and both entry and departure will be staggered.

* You can view the detailed programme for each concert here .