Barcelona Metropolitan Magazine Podcasts

Tori Sparks interviews film composer and music supervisor Toni Mir. He has written soundtracks for award-winning shorts and films and was recently nominated for a 2020 Goya Award for Best Original Song in a film for “Allí en la Arena” from the movie La Inocencia. He is also the founder of Trafalgar 13 Music House, an independent composition and music supervision studio in Barcelona that creates mu...

Tori Sparks interviews world renowned lighting artist, set designer, director, videographer and tech wizard Franc Aleu. The Barcelona native has worked in opera houses all over the world—including Barcelona’s own Liceu—and created innovative art in uncommon formats and unexpected locations. Is the future of opera virtual reality in three dimensions? Listen to the interview to find out!

This month we spoke with casting director Luci Lenox of Frank Stein Studio. She has cast over 100 productions either as lead casting director or as Spanish or European casting director for international co-productions, including series (Westworld, The One, Warrior Nun, others), feature films (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Victoria, Perfume and many more), as well as hundreds of commercials. She explai...

This month, we invite you to sit in on a special quarantine edition of the MCC hosted by musician and Metropolitan collaborator Tori Sparks with award-winning poet, author, screenwriter, lyricist, and commissar of the BCNegra literary festival, Carlos Zanón. He tells us the difference between writing a novel and helping rock stars finish a song and explains how the nightlife of Barcelona figures i...

Musical dynamo Dani Neŀlo is Tori Sparks guest in November MCC. The Spanish saxophone player is a former member of the iconic rock band Los Rebeldes, as well as radio host, television and soundtrack producer, a music historian, and the leader of multiple musical projects including Los Mambo Jambo. Find out who inspires him, and what it’s like working with him in the recording studio.

In July's installment of MCC, Tori Sparks spoke with world renowned Cuban-American visual artist Jorge Rodríguez Gerada, whose massive works of art can be seen from the air, and which always carry a profound message. According to Tori, the only thing wrong with this interview is that it couldn’t be three hours long. Gerada’s life and art are both fascinating.

Our first interview is with Irish-Catalan singer-songwriter Núria Graham, the golden child of the summer music festival circuit and the prodigal daughter of the national press. She lets us in on her songwriting process, explains her thoughts on Joni Mitchell, and tells us how the local police are some of her biggest fans. Núria plays an acoustic version of a song from the album, titled “Another De...

Tori Sparks interviews Palencia-born actress, poet, director and the current “Madame” of Barcelona’s own Prostíbulo Poetico Sonia Barba. Ever wondered what Prostíbulo Poetico, or “poetry brothel” is? Listen to September's episode of MCC to find out. (Interview in English)

This month, we invite you to sit in on another special quarantine edition of the MCC with rock photographer and co-founder of Enderrock magazine, Xavi Mercadé, a.k.a. “The Man Who Is Always There.” Over the past four decades, he has photographed everyone from local bands to the Rolling Stones, and yes, he has been known to sneak a camera into a concert disguised as a sandwich. (Interview in Spanis...

In this month's MCC installment, host Tori Sparks speaks with internationally renowned mastering engineer Yves Roussel. He has worked on everything from Woody Allen movie soundtracks to commercials, from Grammy-winning pop records to local bands’ latest radio singles and he shows no signs of slowing down after 20+ years in the business. (Interview in English)

Hosted by singer, songwriter and Metropolitan collaborator Tori Sparks August's interview is with Croatian actor Luka Peroš, who plays the role of Marsella in the popular Netflix series La Casa de Papel (a.k.a. Money Heist). He lets us in on his acting process, shares stories from behind the scenes on set and explains how the global pandemic has affected him both personally and professionally.

This month Tori interviews internationally sought-after Spanish architect and interior designer Lárazo Rosa Violán. Painter by eight years old, architect by 20, Lázaro opened his design studio in Barcelona in 2002 and has since left an indelible mark on the look of the city and the world with his trademark Baroque-vintage-industrial style

Presenter Tori Sparks chats with actor Oscar Foronda, the only Spanish actor in the cast of the fourth season of the popular Netflix series The Crown. Foronda has appeared in over 85 films and TV series, as well as in numerous commercials. He shares his perspective on life, art, and the importance of following your own path in the face of adversity.

Tori Sparks has a conversation with documentary filmmaker, author, animator, screenwriter, activist and composer Miles Roston. He takes us behind the scenes on his travels around the world, documenting social and human rights issues such as HIV/AIDS, gender equality, nuclear testing and much more.

In this installment of the Metropolitan Culture Corner, we go behind the scenes with award-winning international playwright, director, producer and actress Denise Duncan, whose works for the stage challenge our hidden and sometimes not-so-hidden biases regarding gender, race and society.

Flamenco dancing is one of the most curious of all the arts⁠—dynamic, utterly rhythmic and quintessentially Spanish. While Barcelona is not the heart of flamenco, it is tied to one of the most famous exponents of the dance of all time: Carmen Amaya. We sat with Mimo Agüero, current manager of Tablao de Carmen as we wanted to go further and get to know this wonderful art a little better, and surrou...

The Círculo del Liceo is one of the oldest clubs in Spain, founded in 1854 in Barcelona. If you recognise the name, that’s no doubt because of its relationship with the Teatre del Liceu, with which it shares its stunning, historic building on Las Ramblas. While most clubs might confine themselves to social events and dinners, what sets the Círculo apart is its patronage of the arts. We spoke with...

Ahead of the election, we wanted to find out about groups of British expats across the continent who have come together since the referendum in 2016 to protect the rights and futures of British citizens living in Europe and the sort of work they do, so we got in touch with three to learn some more. First, we hear from Michael Harris, a British writer and educator who lives near Madrid. After the r...

Tot Terapia is a therapy centre based in Sant Cugat del Vallés(at 12 km from Barcelona), that specialise in children with learning difficulties and help them overcome any challenges they might be experiencing at school or at home. In this week’s podcast we spoke with Marta Gomez, Ainhoa Corbera, Jack Gaughan and the centre’s leader, Corien Dorotea, who told us about their transdisciplinary approac...

This week’s podcast episode is all about linguistics: a jaunt into the fertile, fascinating and frequently funny world of languages, how they affect and indeed define the world we live in. To get a proper view on this, we went for Un Tallat Amb… Alex Rawlings, a British language education ambassador and twice published author (How To Speak Any Language Fluently and From Amourette to Żal: Bizarre a...

We spoke to Gestalt Therapist Emma Ruiz and Associate Certified Coach Goldie Uttamchandani to discuss the stigma that surrounds the conversation of mental health and the best ways of addressing it in our community. They shared details about some of the great work they do with the expat community in Barcelona and talked about the essence of communicating our thoughts. They also shared details about...

Gabriela Nivela founded the meal sharing conversations GabsAway in an attempt to recreate the fascinating, frank conversation she remembers from her childhood. Recently, she has started the Diaspora Series where she invites people to sit across the table and discuss the feeling of being away from home. In addition to giving people a space for sharing their experiences, she also ensures that her gu...

Protests have engulfed Barcelona in recent weeks, but what was the root cause, and what was the spark? This week’s En Profunditat clears all that up, with recordings from the protests and interviews with experts to gain real insight into the entire debate. En Profunditat is a bi-weekly podcast from Barcelona Metropolitan, focusing on the biggest stories we have been covering recently. "En Profundi...

From South Africa to Colombia, Central America to the US, and the UK to here in Catalunya, John Carlin has reported from seemingly everywhere around the world, bringing some of the most important stories of the 20th and 21st centuries to a global audience. Here, we cover a range of topics, from his views on the protests that were engulfing Barcelona at the time of recording, to Brexit and his book...

Plastic pollution is a scourge on Barcelona’s beaches. Taking a stroll along the beach is now less of an idyllic… To take on the issue head-on, a newly formed NGO called Pure Clean Earth head down to Barceloneta beach every weekend to clean up as much of the beach as they can, while also giving visibility to the issue and showing what normal people can do to stop it. En Profunditat is a new bi-wee...