The Grec Festival 2026 wants to expand beyond its usual stages and turn Barcelona into a great space for cultural creation. With this objective, the event presented this Wednesday the program 'Tot Barcelona és Grec', an initiative that strengthens alliances with some of the city's main cultural institutions to deploy proposals that connect performing arts, music, heritage, architecture, and contemporary creation.
The initiative seeks for the festival to transcend Montjuïc mountain and spread throughout the city. To this end, the Grec will collaborate with facilities such as the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the Palau de la Música Catalana, the MACBA, the Fundació Joan Miró, the CCCB, the Disseny Hub Barcelona, the Filmoteca de Catalunya, the Museu Tàpies, the Fabra i Coats, the Institut del Teatre or the ESCAC, among others.
This commitment responds to an increasingly present strategy within the festival: to turn Barcelona into a distributed stage where cultural institutions do not act solely as collaborating spaces, but as co-producers and active agents of the programming.
Among the most outstanding proposals is 'Human requiem', a co-production between the Grec and the Palau de la Música Catalana that will bring an immersive experience interpreted by soloists and members of the Orfeó Català to Plaça del Rei and Saló del Tinell. The proposal eliminates traditional barriers between stage and audience to turn musical interpretation into a shared experience.
Music will also play a prominent role with the return of 'Univers Paral·lel', the cycle promoted by Paral·lel 62 that seeks to generate meeting points between different musical communities in the city. This edition will host concerts by Carlos de Jacoba with Ciutat and Baiuca with Júlia Colom. Another returning collaboration is Òh!Pera, jointly promoted by the Grec, the Liceu, and the Disseny Hub Barcelona. The project, focused on new operatic formats, will move this year to the Fabra i Coats, reinforcing the role of this old industrial site as a hub for contemporary creation.
The 2026 edition will once again delve into the dialogue between live arts and museum spaces. The Fundació Joan Miró will open its terraces to host Amore, a proposal linked to the new experimental pop scene, while the Museu Tàpies, the Liceu, and the Grec will expand the 'Extramurs' project with a new intervention by artist Dora García.
The MACBA will also join the program with two proposals of strong experimental component. On one hand, violinist Asia will present Heavy-Metal, a reinterpretation of the musical action conceived by Carles Santos and Pere Portabella during their imprisonment in La Modelo. On the other hand, Los Voluble will bring Democracia total to the museum, a hybrid piece that combines live cinema, critical thinking, digital culture, and audiovisual memory, coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of Franco's death.
The city's architectural heritage will also play a prominent role. The Mies van der Rohe Pavilion will host Breaking Bach (I), a proposal jointly promoted by the Bachcelona festival and the Grec that combines music and dance based on some of Johann Sebastian Bach's most emblematic compositions. The program will also extend to other languages and disciplines. The Desvarío festival, dedicated to contemporary flamenco, will return thanks to the collaboration between the Nou Barris District, El Dorado Sociedad Flamenca Barcelonesa, and the Grec, consolidating a programming line that connects tradition, thought, and sound experimentation.
Internationally, Casa Amèrica Catalunya, the Grec, and the Centre Artesà Tradicionàrius will bring the performance of the Banda Mixanteña de Santa Cecilia to the CAT, a proposal that brings the festive traditions of the Mexican Costa Chica, between the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca, to the Barcelona public. Cinema will also be part of the program. The D'A Festival and the CCCB will present La verdadera historia de Ricardo III, la película and Mammón within the CinemaTeatre program, an initiative dedicated to exploring the links between cinematic and theatrical language.
For its part, the Filmoteca de Catalunya, in collaboration with the Grec and Sala Atrium, will organize the session Veus trenades, linked to the show 'L'última entrevista (Roig/Capmany)' and the exhibition 'Feminismes fílmics. 1976-2016'.
Museums inspire new creations
Along with 'Tot Barcelona és Grec', the festival has also presented a new edition of the program 'Creació i Museus', which now reaches eleven years of trajectory. The initiative connects six creation factories with different museums and heritage spaces in the city to develop projects conceived specifically for each place. This year, spaces such as La Model, the Castell de Montjuïc, the Arxiu Fotogràfic de Barcelona, the Museu Picasso, the Monestir de Pedralbes and the Museu de la Música will participate.
Among the proposals, Trans-it stands out, by creator Zed Zanzu, which will take advantage of the panoptic structure of the old Model prison; Mitologías NPC (Mujeres de agua), by artist Mourae, conceived for Montjuïc Castle; or Lo inevitable: entre la rítmica y la mística, where Juan Carlos Lérida and Carmela Muñoz dialogue with Picasso's work from contemporary dance. With this double commitment to institutional alliances and creation linked to heritage, the Grec reinforces an idea that has been gaining weight within the festival for years: understanding Barcelona not only as the city that hosts the event, but as its main stage.