The XIV Málaga Clásica explores the creative power of Leipzig, New York, Paris, Vienna, and Madrid

Málaga Clásica makes a stop in its 14th edition in five major urban centers where key chapters of musical creation from the Modern and Contemporary eras were written. Leipzig, New York, Paris, Vienna, and Madrid were at different times in history vital centers from which some of the most important artistic movements of classical music were developed and disseminated. Jesús Reina and Anna Margrethe Nilsen, the two co-directors of the International Chamber Music Festival, have gathered and synthesized this legacy with a program titled Metropolis, which will take place from May 25 to May 31 at the Cervantes and Echegaray theaters. The City Council of Málaga organizes this 2026 edition, in which the »la Caixa» Foundation and the Hotel del Pintor collaborate once again.

The mayor of Málaga, Francisco de la Torre, joined Reina and Nilsen this Tuesday morning in presenting the 14th Málaga Clásica International Chamber Music Festival. The councilor for Culture and Historical Heritage of the Málaga City Council, Mariana Pineda; the manager of Málaga Procultura, Juan Antonio Vigar; the regional manager in Andalusia, Ceuta, and Melilla of the »la Caixa» Foundation, Juan Carlos Barroso, and the commercial director of CaixaBank in Málaga, Córdoba, Almería, Ceuta, and Melilla, Carmen González, were present at the press conference, which highlighted the importance of an event that has placed the capital of the Costa del Sol on the international map of chamber music.

Metropolis will focus on five thematic concerts: Leipzig during the Baroque and Romantic periods; New York as a city that welcomed European talent and at the same time a hub where American classical music was forged; Paris as the center of the world during the 'belle époque' and witness to the birth of musical Impressionism and one of its reactions, led by the group Les Six; Vienna, the imperial capital where the finest of Classicism and also Romanticism was shaped, and Madrid, attracting Italian composers to its court, scene of the birth of zarzuela, and a key point in the development of Spanish musical nationalism. Fourteen international soloists will participate in this journey.

As usual, Málaga Clásica will support the youngest instrumentalists from the region by involving them in the two preliminary sessions of the Talent section.

Jesús Reina and Anna Margrethe Nilsen lead a team of young and prestigious international instrumentalists and singers. Russian violinist Liana Gourdjia and Polish violinist Robert Kowalski; Canadian violist Eleanor Kendra James and Cuban Lesster Frank Mejías Ercia; Spanish cellist David Apellániz and German-Spanish Adolfo Gutiérrez; pianists Antonio Ortiz (from Málaga), Natalia Kuchaeva (Russian) and Josu de Solaun (Spanish-American); Norwegian soprano Susanne Hvinden Hals and her compatriot tenor Nils Georg Nilsen, and clarinetist from Cádiz Rafael García will perform alongside Reina and Nilsen in the five thematic concerts.

Tickets for the 14th Málaga Clásica, Metropolis, are available from 6:00 PM today through all Málaga Procultura channels. Tickets for the Echegaray Theater concerts are priced at 15 euros, while tickets for the closing at the Cervantes are 20 euros. Spectators who purchase seats for all the festival concerts will receive a 10% discount on the total amount. All sessions will start at 8:00 PM except for the closing at the Cervantes, which will begin at 7:00 PM. Entry to the two Talent sessions will be by invitation (2 per person): they will be available at box offices and online from 11:00 AM on Friday, May 22.

The five main concerts

The Echegaray Theater will open on Monday, May 25, and Tuesday, May 26, for the appetizer of the two Talent recitals, and will host from Wednesday, May 27 to Saturday, May 30 the first four main concerts of Metropolis. The 2026 edition will close at the Cervantes Theater on Sunday, May 31.

The first thematic concert, on Wednesday, May 27, will visit Leipzig, the German city where Johann Sebastian Bach was appointed in 1723 as 'Thomaskantor' and musical director of its main churches. Bach resided in the Saxon city until his death in 1750, and it was there that he composed much of his choral work, including numerous cantatas, the St. Matthew Passion, or the Mass in B minor. The evening will also include scores by illustrious composers of Romanticism or Post-Romanticism who composed, studied, or taught there, such as Grieg, Schumann, Mendelssohn, or Mahler.

The session on Thursday, May 28, captures the vitality of New York as a city that welcomed talent. There, composers such as the Russian Rachmaninov and the Hungarian Bartók settled in the final phase of their careers, Sigmund Romberg premiered his operettas on Broadway, born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and soon settled in Manhattan, and on its streets, American classical music was forged, as evidenced by the careers of Aaron Copland or recently William Bolcom.

The City of Light, cultural epicenter of the world during the transition between the 19th and 20th centuries, will be the protagonist of the concert on Friday, May 29. Paris witnessed the birth of musical Impressionism with Fauré and Debussy, welcomed romantic authors such as César Frank, eccentrics and originals like Erik Satie or neoclassicists like Les Six member Francis Poulenc, and received the genius of many others, such as Giuseppe Verdi, who premiered operas like Don Carlos, Jérusalem, or The Sicilian Vespers in its theaters.

Vienna has occupied at different historical moments a privileged and essential place in the development of classical music. The evening on Saturday, May 30, will showcase the effervescence of the imperial capital, where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed many of the great masterpieces of Classicism and where different phases of musical Romanticism developed with Brahms and Richard Strauss. The operettas of Franz Lehár, a Hungarian settled in Vienna, will also show in Metropolis the refined and modern profile of the Central European city.

The Sunday, May 31, closes at the Teatro Cervantes the 2026 edition with an extensive panorama of the music conceived in our capital. Their respective stays at the court of Madrid allowed the Neapolitan Baroque composer Domenico Scarlatti to write his famous sonatas and the Tuscan Luigi Boccherini to develop his gallant style, present in Málaga Clásica in the renowned work La musica notturna delle strade di Madrid. The Castilian city was also the heart of zarzuela, represented here by José Serrano and the duo Soutullo and Vert, and a key space for the development of Spanish musical nationalism, which Metropolis will represent through the figures of Manuel de Falla, Joaquín Turina, Jesús de Monasterio, and Enrique Granados. A work by the Madrid-born conductor and composer Antonio Moya Casado will complete the repertoire of the day.

As usual in this annual meeting with chamber music, the thematic concerts will be preceded by the educational activities of Talentos: a selection of young musicians will participate in the festival on Monday, May 25, and Tuesday, May 26, and some of them will receive masterclasses. The session on Tuesday, May 26, titled Metropolis live, will be very special, as it will allow these 'talents' to share the stage of the Echegaray with the soloists of Málaga Clásica to perform works by Malaga composers and current ones. Information for applicants to the Talentos activities will be available at the email secretaria.malagaclasica@gmail.com and at the phone number 699 067 452. Tickets for the two evenings will be by invitation (2 per person), available at box offices and online from 11:00 AM on Friday, May 22.

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