Free concerts in Madrid at the bandstand all summer
Between now and September, The Retiro’s bandstand will be filled with live music every Sunday at 12:00 noon concerts of popular and traditional music.
If you do go to watch these free concerts in Madrid in the summer, i would advice you take a little towel with you.
The seats are the white plastic kind and if you are wearing a pair of shorts, you are going to be sticking to that chair pretty shortly.
With Jan Cober as chief conductor, the Municipal Symphonic Band of Madrid (which turned 115 years old this past June) will be in charge of playing the music that will be played every Sunday at noon in the pavilion until September (with a single break during the month of August).
According to the Madrid City Council, the repertoire will be composed of “traditional and popular musical genres [such as zarzuela or pasodoble] and classical compositions by great figures in the history of music”.
So if you are out and about, be sure to catch one of these concerts. It really is a great way to spend an afternoon in Madrid.
Concert Dates:
June the 9th, 16th, 21st, 23rd and 30th.
July the 7th, 14th and 21st.
September the 8th, 15th and 22nd.
What type of music will they be playing at the bandstand in Retiro?
Among the music you will hear during these concerts (depending on the day) are works such as:
- Lagartijilla by José María Martín Domingo
- The Preludes by Franz Listz, the Semiramide Overture by Gioachino Rossini
- The version of Tell me a jazz story by Jean Calude Naude,
- El tambor de granaderos (Preludio) by Ruperto Chapí.
Also on the list are Franz von Suppé’s Caballería ligera, Federico Moreno Torroba’s Luisa Fernanda (Mazurca de las sombrillas), Thomas Doss’ Spotlights, Ruperto Chapí’s La revoltosa (Preludio) and excerpts from Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi’s Nabucco: Chorus of Hebrew Slaves and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, among many others.