Fades and Maria Hein, big winners at the highly political Enderrock Awards for Balearic Music

Palm"The specter of fascism has returned to our institutions. We read a headline: PP and Vox agree to repeal the historical memory law. But it's not just that: Spanish is being spoken again in the Parliament, the exclusivity of Catalan in the Ciutat de Palma awards is being eliminated, and there are attempts to impose Spanish in schools. And all of this is also being broadcast on IB3: Mallorca is not an ensaimada, nor is it a sobrasada. Mallorca is all of us, those who go out to defend our language and our culture." This was just part of Fades' speech upon receiving the Enderrock Balearic Music Critics' Award for best urban music album for Metallixan award they also received from the public vote. They weren't the only ones recognized for the group, which also won the award for best song as voted by the public for Mon Cheri Go Home, performed jointly with Maria Jaume. "And a message for all young people: take to the streets, be angry, be outraged, but take to the streets!" they said to conclude their first speech.

This was by no means the only demand made on Wednesday night, as the Teatro Principal in Palma hosted the eighth edition of the event. Maria Jaume, upon receiving the award for best song, asserted "the right to defend our streets and say that we don't want to be a theme park or a souvenir." For their part, the group Alanaire, who received the critics' award for best new album, expressed their gratitude with a tribute to Aurora Picornell, while the singer of Saïm, Joan Roig, called for institutional involvement. "We don't have money to pay for rehearsal spaces and venues to perform in. Music isn't a business, culture can't be," he said shortly before exclaiming, "Long live free Palestine, we won't let the bad guys win!" In fact, the Gaza genocide has been present since the beginning of the gala thanks to the performance of If you say Gaza, a theme made from different fragments of the album>363 Re-visions of Palestine(Ona Ediciones, 2025) by Miquel Brunet. It was one of the most moving, and also most well-attended, performances of the night, with a handful of musicians and reciters on stage. Upon receiving the critics' award for best classical music album for this work, Brunet stated that "I prefer to make a protest album than a minute of silence."

Maria Hein from Felanitx also took to the stage three times, like Fades, to collect the awards for best pop and singer-songwriter album for Katanaboth from critics and the public vote, and also to receive the audience award for best artist. Anna Ferrer, for her part, also received both awards, the jury's and the public vote's, for best folk album for Paranostic. Furthermore, the audience awards, the great unknown of the night since The critics had already announced their opinions, Nineta has been awarded the prize for breakthrough artist and Between light and darkness, Pelo de Gall's album won Best Pop Rock Album.

Antònia Font's "See you later"

The Honorary Awards have served to recognize the career of Cap Pela – who thanked the organizers for the award with a performance of one of their great classics, that We are not the king which is already part of the soundtrack for a couple of generations of islanders—Antònia Font—with Pau Debon ending his speech with an enigmatic "until next time"—and journalist Pere Estelrich, who made the audience laugh when he said that "if Bach is playing, I should have a music stand nearby." The gala, which began after eight in the evening, was presented by Mar Coll and David Ordinas and included performances by groups such as Ánimos Parrec and Cabot, as well as Plan-ET and Cosijoan, Púniks and Xisk, Anna Ferrer, and Marco Mezquida, among others.