From Thursday 10th to Sunday 13th February, Festival Emergents Barcelona gathered audiences of over 5,500 people at its 14 concerts.

Two programmes by the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra deserve a special mention, featuring soloists Eric Lu on the piano and Alejandro Gómez Pareja on the cello. Both concerts also marked the Barcelona debut of Mexican conductor Alondra de la Parra, with packed audiences in L’Auditori’s Hall 1, Pau Casals.

Similarly, a magnificent concert was also given by the Barcelona Symphony Band, with two virtuoso trombone players as soloists: Polina Tarasenko and Iván Plaus.

This edition came with a new event a free Chamber Music Marathon, held on the Saturday in Hall 2, Oriol Martorell. Over 1,000 people were able to enjoy the talents of 9 gifted young musicians, with 7 hours of live music at the 6 concerts they gave. All of them are extraordinary musicians, endorsed by leading institutions from the world of music, both in Spain and abroad. As part of the ECHO Rising Stars programme, Stockholm’s Konserthuset presented violinist Johan Dalene, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw introduced recorder player Lucie Horsch, the London Barbican brought us horn player Ben Goldscheider, Young Musicians of Catalonia presented talented soprano Mireia Tarragó and pianist Eudald Buch, and the Maria Canals International Competition graced us with the winner of its 2019 edition, pianist Daumants Liepiņš. At the express wish of L’Auditori, the Marathon featured numerous works by female composers, such as Pauline Viardot, Sofia Gubaidulina, Francesca Caccini, Jane Vignery, Anne Danican Philidor, Alma Mahler, Matilde Salvador, Clara Schumann and Ilse Weber, in addition to the Spanish premieres of works by Tebogo Monnakgotla and Lotta Wennäkoski.

At this edition of the festival, L’Auditori again explored new alternative formats, such as the choral concerts by the Jove Capella Reial de Catalunya, conducted by Lluís Vilamajó, and by the National Youth Choir of Catalonia, conducted by Pere Lluís Biosca, performed with the audience on stage in Hall 1, Pau Casals. In the programmes they offered, Vilamajó’s youth choir impressed the audience with the sophisticated sonority of Membra Jesu Nostri by Dietrich Buxtehude, while Biosca paid tribute to contemporary Catalan composers, such as Mariona Vila, Joan Magrané, Bernat Vivancos and Albert Guinovart.

As for more jazz-inspired offerings, members of the public were able to discover Big Babo–a quartet headed by Mallorcan pianist Toni Mora, with a repertoire of original works of diverse influences–and guitarist and composer Ernest Pipó’s group of musicians, who offered a new take on Negro spirituals in jazz mode. For yet another year, Festival Emergents Barcelona also counted on the participation of the Liceu Jazz Grup, a group made up of some of the Conservatori Superior del Liceu’s finest students.