The Louis Vuitton 37th America's Cup arrives in Barcelona accompanied by the Cultural Regatta, a set of activities that begins now and will continue until the end of the year. It is a wide range of cultural, artistic, sports, gastronomic, science and leisure events that aims to strengthen Barcelona's link with this sporting event and facilitate its dissemination.
The Cultural Regatta remembers the Cultural Olympiad that Barcelona organized in 1992 on the occasion of its Olympic Games. It is promoted by Barcelona City Council in collaboration with entities and institutions that want to promote new activities or link those they already carried out with the Copa del América. In this way, it has been possible to design a program with more than 200 activities promoted by more than 60 entities, institutions and facilities, which can be consulted on the website www.barcelona.cat/regatacultural. New initiatives may be added to the program in the coming months.
From now on, a stand produced by the Barcelona Capital Nàutica Foundation, which brings together all administrations, will visit the main events held in the city to promote the America's Cup.
The Clássica a la Platja concert series returns on July 11 and 12, expanding its format and featuring top international names. With the help of Barcelona Obertura, the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the Palau de la Música and L'Auditori, two concerts will be offered with the best conductors of the moment: Gustavo Dudamel and Ludovic Morlot, with a program accessible to all audiences. The concerts, which have the collaboration of the la Caixa Foundation, will be held on Sant Sebastià beach.
The first concert, on July 11, will bring the Barcelona and National Symphony Orchestra of Catalonia to the stage under the baton of its principal conductor, Ludovic Morlot, and the Orfeó Català, accompanied by great Catalan voices such as the soprano Serena Sáenz and the baritone Josep Ramon Olivé and such renowned international voices as the mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham and the tenor Freddie de Tommaso.
The repertoire will be an ode to the anthems of great sporting events and will include pieces so appreciated by the public such as the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the aria Nessum Dorma from Puccini's Turandot, Orff's O Fortuna and the pre-Olympic anthem Barcelona that Freddie Mercury composed for Montserrat Caballé
The second concert, scheduled for July 12, will be performed by the Cor and the Orquestra Simfònica del Liceu, under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel, with the participation of two internationally renowned soloists, the violinist María Dueñas and the cellist Pablo Fernández, and with the collaboration of the Orfeó Català Children's Choir.
The audience will be able to enjoy a repertoire for all audiences with a selection of the most emblematic compositions of the well-known composer John Williams. During the evening pieces from Superman, Jurassic Park, E.T., Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc. will be performed.
To also bring music closer to vulnerable groups that cannot go to the beach, the Orfeó Català Choir Petits and Choir Mitjans will hold performances and workshops in residences for the elderly and the Palau de la Música Catalana Chamber Choir will offer a free performance in Hospital del Mar.
On June 15, Port Vell will host the 38th Gran Encuentro de Habaneras Barcelona, heart of the sea, which will premiere its stage. The Association Amics de les Havaneras and the Barcelona Festivals Committee promote the event, which will feature the performances of the groups Crema Catalana, Boira, Ultramar and Port Bo, with the collaboration of the Mediterranean Choir of the Casal de Gent Gran Mediterrània of the Barceloneta
On October 10, on the eve of the grand final of the Copa del América, Barcelona will offer a ceremony from the beach, with a striking and visual spectacle, open and free, that will once again position the city as a world reference. This project is led by the Barcelona Capital Nàutica Foundation.
The Race Village that will be installed at the Moll de la Fusta every day of the competition (starting on August 22), the activities at the Port Olímpic and the Mercè festivities will be three important events for the cultural and creative expression of the city.
On weekends, from Friday to Sunday starting at 8:00 p.m., more than 30 performances will be scheduled on the main stage of the Village, 8 of them starring artists from Ciutat Vella and, in particular, from the Barceloneta neighborhood.
The Race Village stage will feature an extensive cultural program coordinated by the Barcelona Institute of Culture (ICUB) between August 30 and October 20. On the afternoons from Friday to Sunday, a proposal for all audiences will be offered, with around twenty performances that will showcase the work of street music and arts professionals and popular culture manifestations.
The renovated Port Olímpic will join the activities of the Cultural Regatta on weekends between mid-September and mid-October. At the Port Olímpic, which will host the women's and youth regattas, the ICUB will organize small-format concerts at midday with the collaboration of the Barcelona Jazz Festival, as well as proposals aimed at family audiences.
In addition, for the first time, the Olympic Port will be one of the stages of Barcelona's fiesta mayor. On the 21st, 22nd and 24th of September, the Mercè Street Arts festival will allow you to rediscover the new Olympic Port, through daytime programming aimed at all audiences and focused on street arts.
Likewise, Barcelona residents and visitors to the city will be able to enjoy a show that will be located at three points along the Barcelona coast, throughout the three main days of performing arts programming at Mercè Arts de Carrer, on the 21st, 22nd and 24th September. This is a production that will highlight the importance of the sea in the development and identity of the city, as well as the spirit of an open, participatory, welcoming and cosmopolitan Barcelona.
The Port Olímpic will be reborn this summer as a new, completely renovated, accessible, and sustainable city space. The Gastronomic Balcony will open its doors at the Moll de Gregal, a new restaurant area where you can taste quality, diverse culinary proposals with a Barcelona character.
The Port Olímpic will also be the city's first blue economy hub, with companies linked to maritime activity, sustainability and the circular economy that will deploy innovative, sustainable and nautical dissemination projects.
In this context, the commitment to sustainability stands out. An example of this is the large photovoltaic pergola that will cover the energy consumption of the Port Olímpic and other nearby facilities and that will supply the ultra-fast chargers for electric boats.
Libraries, museums and other institutions in the city will promote exhibitions, debates, talks, shows and family activities related to the seas, oceans, water or the climate crisis in the coming months.
The Library Consortium is involved in the Cultural Regatta with the Mar de fons series of talks; book clubs on literary classics with a maritime background; and an event dedicated to the sea that will take place at Literature, the Nature Festival promoted by Barcelona's libraries. The Un mar de llibres project will also be promoted, which will offer summer workshops for families.
Starting this month and until October, the Maritime Museum will be one of the showcases of the America's Cup with activities that will bring together the technology and innovation behind the regattas. This Thursday, April 18, the museum opens a series of talks on sailing regattas in Catalonia, and will host two exhibitions, one to explain the technological and competition aspects of sailing regattas, and the other about the work and dreams of women sailors. A nautical party for children and families will take place in October.
In July, the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona will premiere the audiovisual Parlen el oceans, escoltem-los!. This is an initiative by Conservation International to raise awareness of what pollution and the loss of natural habitats mean.
Disseny Huh Barcelona will premiere the L’Oceà parla exhibition in October, which will show the challenges facing coastal societies around the world in the current climate crisis.
The Center de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) will host the European Urban Public Space Award, which recognizes the best creation and transformation interventions in public spaces in European cities, and this year includes a special mention for the best design project. recovery of a maritime front in Europe. The CCCB also promotes the debate cycle Cities and the Sea in a time of climate emergency, and in the month of October it will present Of sirens and robots, with Tarta Relena and Joan Llort, a show that explores the sounds of the ocean.
The Joan Miró Foundation will host a talk about the figure of the artist from the highest terrace of the Torre del Coneixement of the Sert building, from where you can contemplate the sea and the entire city, a place that is not open to the public. usual.
Casa Asia has programmed its activities taking into account the winning country of the last edition, New Zealand, and has set out to publicize its cinema, its writers and science. The program includes meetings at the Jaume Fuster Library with leading writers from that country; a New Zealand film series and an informative workshop to promote the conservation and use of the oceans.
The Festa de la Ciència will take place at the Born Center Cultura i Memòria on June 7, 8 or 9, and this year it is also dyed blue. Programs activities related to the decade of ocean sciences for sustainable development (2021-2030) to protect the ecosystem of seas and oceans; the drought; and the consolidation of Barcelona as a world reference for nautical and blue economy.
Sail in Tour, the benchmark sailing film festival, arrives in Barcelona in its “tour” format, coinciding with the year of the America's Cup. The festival includes cinema, art, outreach, training and education. It will have three sessions on May 24, June 21 and July 26. The CCCB will host the three sessions with a selection of the best films and short films and talks with personalities from the world of sailing.
During the America's Cup, the largest Catalan skate exhibition regatta in history will be held. They will share the same space on the regatta field as the America's Cup teams and it is expected to achieve a record participation of about 300 patines de vel, a genuinely Catalan light sailing boat, catamaran type, which is characterized by not having a centerboard, rudder , boom or battens in the sail.
In addition, work is also being done to promote a school and youth league for shared boats and another for junior Catalan skates.
Viu la Vela is one of the main programs promoted by the Barcelona Sports Institute (IBE) that has made it possible to bring sailing sports to the city's schools, reaching almost 10,000 boys and girls in 6th grade. On June 12, the closing ceremony will be held at the Port Olímpic and on the Nova Icària beach, with nearly 2,000 students, a great party that will culminate the second edition of the program.
Barcelona promotes Pavelló Blau, the City Council's government measure, which aims to enhance and improve the entire seafront as a large space for outdoor sports, from Port Vell to Port Fòrum. Within the Cultural Regatta, initiatives such as Let's move will be promoted, a free physical activity program that includes proposals such as open water swimming.
The America's Cup will also be accompanied by events related to gastronomy, restaurants, commerce and the city's markets, before and during the regattas.
Some activities are growing, such as Tast a la Rambla, which this year will incorporate a gastronomic sample representative of the 12 countries present in the Copa del América.
Especially in Barceloneta and the closest neighborhoods, restaurants and commerce will also take to the streets to share the best product of the city and bring the local gastronomic offer closer to everyone, neighbors and visitors.
The program includes the AC37 Special Cocktail (from May 2 to October 27); Tast a la Rambla (June 6 to 9), Street Food at Born AC37 (June 28, 29 and 30 and September 20, 21 and 22); Barcelona Tast (September 27 to October 6); Street Food Market Barceloneta (September 27 to 29 and October 4 to 6); Poblenou Wine Festival (September 28 and 29 and weekends in October); Tapa Fest 2024 at the Palo Alto venue) (September 28 and 29); and Born Districte Gastronòmic (October 1 to 20)
The Copa del América will also reach local commercial hubs. On weekends in September and October, itinerant activities will be carried out so that neighbors, merchants and visitors can also enjoy the regattas.
The Tasta'M gastronomic cycle, promoted by the Municipal Markets Institute of Barcelona and the Federation of Municipal Markets, moves through the different markets of the city with seasonal products and music. This time, dedicated to seafood cuisine and sea products. In addition, the Petit Mercat de Mercats and the Mercat de Mercats will also be linked to the sporting event
The Little Market of Markets will take place in the market of Sant Antoni (May 10); Tasta’M Musclada in the Les Corts market (June 5); Tasta’M Paella Popular in the Provençal market (June 29); Tasta’M Sardinada in the Santa Caterina market (September 14); Tasta’M Fideuà in the Barceloneta market (October 5); and the Mercat de Mercats fair in Plaza Catalunya (18, 19 and 20 October.)
Barcelona City Council and the digital The New Barcelona Post are promoting a cycle dedicated to bringing the America's Cup closer to citizens. A monthly event will be held at the Antigua Fábrica Damm to explain and disseminate the highlights of this competition (May 15, June 19 and July 17).
