Joan Oliver Roig (Manacor, 2002) Cosijoan, is a rapper and History of Art student. Red cap from Manacor and Majorica pearl necklace. He has just released his first album Morir d'èxit, a real declaration of intent for a work that starts melodically but ends up being incredibly raw. He presents it next Saturday, September 12th, at Sa Factoria in Manacor.

The Majorcan artist Daniel Heredia, artistically known as Rels B, will offer a free concert in Palma on September 11th to mark Mallorca Day and his appointment as Favorite Son of Mallorca. The performance, organized by the Consell de Mallorca, will begin at 9:30 PM in the area between the Parc de la Mar and the Paseo Marítimo of the Balearic capital.

The Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, led by its principal conductor, Sir Mark Elder, was responsible for setting off the grand finale of the fireworks display that marked the latest edition of the Pollença Festival. Sixty-five editions stand testament to it, and its momentum only serves to enhance its legend. The full capacity of each and every one of the seven concerts that made up the program could serve as a sufficiently eloquent summary of what it has been, with this festive closing of a magnitude that merely anticipates the next edition.

Perhaps by the time this text is published, it's already considered charca to say that something is charca. But delving into this topic has become a necessity, an obligation (and for my friends, an obsession). In short, something much more complex and less frivolous than I would have wished, which initially was reduced to a list of things that made us be charca (in my interpretation, of course).

Second to last concert of an edition, by Muffati-Brussels Baroque Orchestra, until then immaculate and with one of the concerts that for some was almost the cherry on top of a magnificent cake. An evening entirely dedicated to the one who was everything, Johann Sebastian Bach, with a tasty and rich program, like a small great demonstration of the undisputed condition of the great capoper of music history. For example, with the first piece, the "Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major BWV 1050, which treasuresa first majestic and original movement, the impeccable combination of the different solo instruments, harpsichord, flute, and violin crowned by an innovative sixty-four-bar cadence by the harpsichord, which until that moment in history only served as a fundamental but not very ostentatious basso continuo. Only with this Allegro initially we had enough ingredients to enjoy thoroughly. It wasn't like that. Just when it had barely started, a gust of wind blew away Frank Theuns's sheet music and perhaps here the elements allied against any possibility of enjoyment. Hope was placed in the cadence, but not even that. Violaine Cochard, at the height of her performance, seemed to be chasing the notes as if it were an obstacle race to align them with those coming from the original; a task that was almost impossible without the adequate (over)dose of virtuosity. It is easy to imagine that it was not simple to sort out the mess.

In 2024, twenty years after launching the musical project Mazoni, the captain behind it, Jaume Pla (la Bisbal d’Empordà, 1977), decided he had to stop. The alarms were clear: “Before some concerts, I thought that if it rained and I got paid, it was fine. That thought scared me. A musician can't not want to go out and play,” he says in a conversation with ARA Balears. This week he has two concerts in the Islands to present the album he released last September, Banderes per daltònics, a return to the most pop sounds in the project's history: on Thursday, August 20, he will be at Jazzbah in Ciutadella; on Friday, August 21, he will present the album in Santanyí (in the courtyard of Col·legi Bisbe Verger), in a concert that is part of the summer festival program of the Fundació Mallorca Literària, La Lluna en Vers. They will be concerts with the whole band: “The last few times I've come to Mallorca, I've been solo. I'm very excited to come with the whole group to do these two concerts, for them to be energetic and to find that feeling that you seem to be floating when you make music. I think it's an album that is enjoyed more as a group”.

The second week of August Menorca has welcomed a new large-format music festival, Ukalari Live. The managers of the theater of the same name in Ciutadella, Alberto Gómez and Miriam Torres, dare to program 10 days of concerts, from David Bustamante to The Tyets and the tribute This is Michael, in a venue set up at the Sporting Maonès football field which can hold 4,000 people. These days employ about thirty people and cause the indirect creation – they estimate – of 300 more jobs. A significant leap, but they say it is controlled, compared to what they are used to at the old Calós theater, now Ukalari, where in two years they have managed to regularly fill its 575 seats and have attracted nearly 25,000 spectators.

In Mallorca, one of the great allies of the boom of tourism were the so-called tourist songs. The lyrics praised the island's scenic wonders. The seed was already sown in the 40s of the 20th century by the Majorcan musician Pere Bonet Mir (1917-2002), better known as Bonet de Sant Pere and professionally Bonet de San Pedro. In the midst of the post-war period, in the song Bajo el cielo de Palma, he proclaimed to the four winds “paisajes lindos tiene Mallorca”. He would deal with the same theme in Un viejo hogar en la isla, Juntito al mar, Cala d’Or, and Canto a Mallorca. These utterly naive compositions contrasted with the famous song Raska-yú, which in 1943 the island artist wrote as a parody of death in times of great misery (Franco's regime even censored it, suspecting it contained an implicit criticism of the dictatorship).

Pollença, the festival, is experiencing a time of monographic tributes. It was the case with the Ébène Quartet's dedication to Ludwig van Beethoven. It will be the case with Les Muffati-Brussels Baroque Orchestra's tribute to Johann Sebastian Bach. And it was the case with the Freiburger Barokorchester's performance on Saturday, exclusively featuring pieces by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Three composers who share a common denominator: they are unfathomable. One could dedicate infinite monographic concerts to any of them and they would never cease to be of maximum interest. The one we are concerned with is not an exception, but rather a small, great selection that demonstrates the versatility of someone who made music almost unintentionally. Thus, the chamber orchestra, with twenty-four musicians, conducted by Éva Borhl on violin, began the task with the overture of The gardener's trick, early work, simple, with a lot of rhythm and prioritizing melody, where a gem arises from almost nothing. It was a prelude that in some way became a declaration of principles of what the concert would be, in which, once again, the cloister of Sant Domingo presented an unbeatable appearance, or what is the same, a full house.

Continue the tradition. The Pollença Festival, more orchestral than ever this year, has once again incorporated the presence of the Balearic Islands Symphony Orchestra into its programming. It is the golden culmination of a always dense season, like a well-deserved gift of prestige. The occasion featured the direction of Patrick Hahn and the cellist Alban Gerhardt as soloist performing the "Cello Concerto in E minor Op. 85 by Edward Elgar. A mature work, his last orchestral piece, like a testament, that of an old and ill man who is figuring out the end of his existence and wants to explain his state with this intense and painful cry. Not a hint of enthusiasm from the initial lament of the solo instrument, which does nothing but foreshadow and confirm all that will follow, when the violas accompany him on this first, somber, and deep walk. A moderato adagio. Alban Gerhardt, a great protagonist, managed to draw out the immense melodic richness the composition holds from his instrument, with a very introspective reading that, in some way, brought fidelity to the spirit of the original. Patrick Hahn, the young Austrian conductor, on the one hand, and the Symphony, on the other, offered the essential balance and circumspection to achieve the ideal equilibrium of a score that concentrates beauty and sadness in equal measure. With a Prelude by Johann Sebastian Bach, Alban Gerhardt acted as if he had finished his performance.It wasn't like that. A detail that honors him, and it is not small. Significant. Alban Gerhardt joined the orchestra to perform the piece that crowned the function, the luminous Scheherazade op. 35 by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, based on some of the tales of The Arabian Nights, which the protagonist who gives title to the composition recounted to Sultan Shahriar to appease his anger. But that is another story. The composition is a whole display of delicacies with which some of the instruments show off their best virtues. Thus, Spahiu, Bleuse, Miralles, Arnal and Fortea —violin, cello, flute and oboe— displayed many of their skills in a small great wonder that, being so colorful, never ceases to shine, just as it happened in this second concert of the Festival de Pollença. A second concert that began with a Prelude of Tristan and Isolde, which, in a way, suffered from the ailment of references, but which in any case served as a good prologue to the piece by the British. A German, a British, and a Russian... offered us another good concert of the level and prestige of the event that concerns us and will concern us all month of August.

Music has always been present in his life. He has classical training, sang in different choirs when he was young and also played in an orchestra. Over the years he has gone through several bands and before Paco Pecado he had started a project in English “much less identity-related”, he says, and that belonged to another artistic stage. Javier Morales (Barcelona, 1993), the man behind the project, considers Paco Pecado to be his “first fully personal and solo project”. Thus, in March 2025 he published "Between wineries and fairs, an eleven-song album that he will present in Mallorca on August 7th in Consolació, Sant Joan, as part of the La Lluna en Vers festival of the Fundació Mallorca Literària. It will be an evening of a double concert, because Gregotechno will also perform, a project that mixes Gregorian chant with contemporary electronic music. A night titled "To sin.

The initial intention of this project was to “make accessible” a repertoire that had profoundly struck Marc Vilajuana. Approximately ten years ago, he discovered Gregorian chant and was fascinated by this sonic universe. “Beyond the spiritual aspect, it is the foundation of Western music. It is with Gregorian chant that musical writing begins in the West, as until then music had been transmitted orally,” he points out.

“I think I can be the voice of my generation… Or at least a voice of a generation” is the most iconic phrase of the character Hannah Horvath in Girls, the series written by and starring Lena Dunham, which is already one of the best generational narratives of the early 21st century. In the case of Mallorca, in the midst of the 2020s, a whole host of young artists are giving voice to their generation. Anna Picornell, Miquel Mas, Lluïsa Febrer, Josep Alorda, and Mariona Jaume are five of them. With music, theater, drawing, cinema, and dance, respectively, they capture their Zeitgeist (the spirit of an era, in German). The moment they have to live through – like Hannah – grants them this fair dose of enthusiasm, marked by a realism that doesn't quite become pessimistic, and a need to define themselves shaped by social media.

Xanguito has just released Batecs, a new EP of five songs with which the group opens a riskier, more intimate and mature stage in its trajectory. After almost a decade on stage, the Mallorcan band reaffirms its identity with a work that focuses on intensity and attention to every detail.

Tomeu Penya, 77, speaks candidly to ARA Balears: “I want my current state of mind to be very clear. I am very sad. As a young man, I would never have imagined that Mallorca's future would be like it is now, an island full of cement and tourists, with saturated roads and residents who cannot afford housing. For this summer's concerts, I'm considering singing ‘Trenc’ again, which I dedicated four decades ago to the emblematic beach of Campos that now, unfortunately, is once again under threat”. ‘Trenc’ was the debut of the country singer from Vilafranca as an environmental activist at 35 years old. It is one of the most outstanding songs from his third album Coverbos (1984).

Amidst contradictory feelings, this Thursday saw the first day of MoboFest 2026 unfold. Joy for being able to enjoy a new edition of the most popular music festival in Pla de Mallorca, and a certain sadness for what has not yet happened and already evokes nostalgia: the last edition after a decade of continuous activity and the uncertainty about whether there will be a worthy successor.

The historic bassist of Antònia Font, Joan Roca, died early this Wednesday at 53 years of age, after a long illness. His passing represents a great loss for Catalan music, after a career closely linked to one of the most influential and beloved bands of recent decades. Roca began to be part of the group practically from its beginnings and participated in the evolution of the formation until it became a musical phenomenon, with albums and songs that have marked several generations, including Joy and Taxi.

Celebrating friendship is what the Mobofest has done for these 10 years, since 2017, when it burst to life in a first edition at Puig de Consolació, in Sant Joan. It returns this year, from July 23 to 25, to have the last dance and close a life cycle with a very round number: a decade.

After exploring the traditional repertoire from a contemporary perspective in their early works, Tarta Relena delved into tragic thought, oracles, and humanity's relationship with the uncertainty of the future to write and perform És pregunta (2024), an album produced entirely by the duo formed by Helena Ros and Marta Torrella. With the maxim 'less is more' as their banner, Tarta Relena offers a set of songs that narrate impermanence and turn their live performance into a ritual. Voices are the main instrument, and the different languages they sing in bring different "worldviews" to the album. They will present it on July 31st in the garden of Casa Llorenç Villalonga in Binissalem as part of the La Lluna en Vers festival. We spoke with one of them, Marta Torrella.

In the Balearic Islands, the Civil War is full of small great stories that would deserve a good film. One is the odyssey starring the Mahón musician Deseado Mercadal Bagur. The Alicante journalist Tomás Andújar, delegate of the Efe agency in the Archipelago, has just rescued him from oblivion in the book "Water is running out. The exile of Deseado Mercadal, edited by Dolmen. He has done it based on the testimony of Celeste, the granddaughter of the Minorcan, and on the two books she wrote years after returning to her island: I was in Kenadza: nine years of exile (1983) and The Civil War in Menorca 1936-1939: historical account of a witness (1994).