Paseo de Gràcia is preparing to kick off weeks full of activities to celebrate its 200th anniversary. After a timid start to the festivities in September, with a popular festival that took place during La Mercè and brought bastons, tabals, correfocs, and gegants, the avenue will begin the bulk of its celebration program this weekend, which will extend until 2024.
It will do so with free jazz concerts, coinciding with International Jazz Day and transforming, according to the organizers, the commercial artery into the Paseo del Jazz with more than ten hours of live music. The program will begin on Saturday with a marching band that will tour the avenue from top to bottom for four hours, spread across the morning and afternoon.
The performances on this Paseo del Jazz will continue on Sunday. The Andreu Dixie Band (1:00 PM) will start, followed by trumpeter Joan Mar Sauqué (2:30 PM) and the band Las de Barcelona (4:00 PM). Then will come the founders and members of Snarky Puppy, Michael League and Bill Laurence (5:30 PM), and mandolinist Hamilton de Holanda and pianist Nduduzo Makhathini (7:15 PM). The final concert will be performed by the Balkan Paradise Orchestra (9:00 PM).
After this music-filled weekend, Paseo de Gràcia will wait until Friday, May 5, to continue with the celebration. Casa Batlló will be the setting for this new chapter, transforming itself again with the mapping that visual artist Refik Anadol did a year ago during the Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) audiovisual congress. The projection can be seen starting at 9:30 PM in five ten-minute sessions that will take place every half hour and will last until 11:30 PM.
Finally, the castellers will take over Paseo de Gràcia on Sunday, May 14. At the height of Aragó street, the Castellers de Barcelona and the Castellers de la Vila de Gràcia will raise their human towers in a spot that will surely capture the attention of the many tourists who constantly take photos of the Casa Batlló facade.
After this first phase of festivities, the Associació Passeig de Gràcia, in collaboration with the Fundació Barcelona Promoció, foresees some more activities for the summer. One of them will involve a tightrope walker who will cross Paseo de Gràcia at a height of 200 meters. It will be part of the 47th edition of the Grec Festival.