Barcelona's major festival will bring together artists from around thirty countries across 16 venues. Shanghai will be the guest city and there will be eleven album premieres and five original productions.
La Mercè 2026, Barcelona's major festival, will showcase a total of 109 concerts across 16 venues in the city with the participation of artists from around thirty countries. The programme, presented this Monday by the Barcelona City Council, reinforces the open and diverse nature of an event that this year will feature Shanghai as the guest city.
This year's edition will be marked by two significant changes in the organisation: it will be the last programme of Música Mercè signed by Gisela Sais, and BAM – Barcelona Acción Musical will begin a new phase with Marta Mei and Aina Pociello as curators. Both are committed to strengthening the most innovative proposals from the national and international scene.
Shanghai, the guest city, will present three musical proposals that reflect the diversity of its scene: the Shanghai Conservatory of Music Jazz Ensemble, the Shanghai Restoration Project, which fuses electronic, hip-hop, and dance with traditional Chinese music, and the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra. The three groups will establish a dialogue between traditional instruments, jazz, electronic music, and contemporary sounds, according to municipal sources.
The Música Mercè block will feature 34 concerts that combine tradition and contemporary styles. The lineup includes Sabor de Gràcia (Catalan rumba), María Terremoto and La Barcelona Flamenca (flamenco), Luísa Sobral and Nacho Vegas (singer-songwriter), Aterciopelados (Latin American rock), Arp Frique (psychedelia), Maika Makovski, Def Mama Def (afropop), La Pegatina (festive pop), and new proposals from La Paloma, Marc Vilajuana, Sorvina, and Pol Batlle. Experimental folk and avant-garde jazz from Fuensanta will also be included.
Meanwhile, BAM – Barcelona Acción Musical will present 39 concerts and solidify its role as a radar for new scenes. Scheduled artists include Uzi Freyja, The Slates, and Sandra Monfort, along with premieres from Brama, KIW & Mourad Belouadi, and Sandré. The festival will also host the first concerts in Barcelona for La 126, La Valentina, Islandman, I AM ROZE, Imarhan, and Daoud. The programme will cover post-punk, electronic, contemporary folk, roots music, clubbing, experimental rock, and new urban scenes.
La Mercè will also showcase new album releases with eleven presentations of new works by artists such as Nacho Vegas, Luísa Sobral, María Terremoto, Aterciopelados, and La Paloma. Additionally, the festival will promote five original productions created specifically for this edition: La Barcelona Flamenca; the musical dialogue between Ana Rossi and Joana Queiroz; the symphonic concert of Vozes with Marco Mezquida; and two other proposals yet to be detailed.
BAM – Acció Cultura Viva will celebrate its tenth anniversary by consolidating a model of community governance and shared curation with local entities and neighbourhood groups. The project will maintain its activities at Fabra i Coats, which has become a reference space for community creation and local projects.
The concerts will be distributed throughout the city, with stages at iconic locations such as Parc de la Ciutadella, Moll de la Fusta, Avinguda de la Catedral, and various local venues. The Barcelona City Council anticipates that the programme will attract hundreds of thousands of attendees, both locals and visitors, in an edition aimed at strengthening the link between culture and public space.
The specific dates and times of the concerts will be announced soon, although the major festival will take place, as is tradition, around September 24. The complete programme can be consulted on the official La Mercè website.
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