In today's broadcast, we talk to Jonathan Stafford, the artistic director of the New York City Ballet. This world-renowned ballet company, in which Stafford was principal dancer until his retirement in 2014, performed recently in Madrid. It was the NYCB's first performance in the Spanish capital and only its second anywhere in the country, the first having taken place in Barcelona in the late 50's. This week is Semana Santa or Holy Week, and today we also revisit Amy Egan's report on Easter celebrations in Spain, with special attention to Seville and its colorful processions.

In today's broadcast we learn about the boys' choir of the monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial, located in the north-west of Madrid. On occasion of the Holy Week celebrations that start on Good Friday and end on Easter Sunday, we talk to Father Pedro Alberto Sánchez who is in charge of the choir. He tells us about the musical training that the boys receive and about their lives and daily routines within the monastery.  We also talk to the boys and to one of their teachers and we attend their choir rehearsal. After the news, we hear from our correspondent in Lebanon, Elsa Yazbek, with a report on celebrations in times of crisis.

In today's broadcast, we take a look at an upcoming project that mixes the best of Flamenco with the best of Rock and Roll... a show created by old-school rock promoter, Pino Sagliocco, and with the participation of two musicians of the Rolling Stones' band, singer Bernard Fowler and saxophonist Tim Ries.

In today's broadcast, after the news we talk to Catalan orchestra conductor Josep Caballé Domenech and German cellist Jan Vogler about their world premiere recording of the "Cello Concerto in F Major" by Enric Casals, the brother of world-famous Catalan cellist Pablo Casals.  And, of course, we also hear extracts from the new recording, in which Vogler is accompanied by the Moritzburg Festival Orchestra, conducted by Caballé Domenech.   The album, released in March on Sony Classical, also includes Édouard Lalo's "Cello Concerto in D minor."

In today's broadcast, and after taking a look at the news, we talk about the opera 'The Nose' by Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, which comes to a close on March the 30th, after seven performances that have taken place in the Royal Opera House of Madrid. The artistic director in this production of 'The Nose' is Johannes Stepanek, who talks about sarcasm and surrealism in the plot of this opera in which a state official loses his nose and chases it through the streets of St. Petersburg.We also talk to two members of the cast, Martin Winkler and José Manuel Montero, and learn about 'The Nose's' music score with opera conductor Mark Wigglesworth.

Today, we have a special broadcast all about the second most widely spoken language in terms of native speakers, with close to 600-million total speakers worldwide... El 'español'... On occasion of the Spanish Language International Congress, Amy Egan discusses the language's reach and development with Professor Alexis Grohmann, Professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Edinburgh and recently named 'Catedrático Cervantes', a Cervantes Institute Professor.

In today's broadcast, after the news we continue our visit to the Lucian Freud exhibition currently running at Madrid's Thyssen Museum in the company of one of the show's curators, Paloma Alarcó, who among other things defends the German-born British painter against claims that he was a misogynist.  Today's is the second part of a two-part virtual visit to the exhibition "Lucian Freud: New Perspectives," which opened at the Thyssen on February 14th and runs through June 18th.

In today's broadcast, and after taking a quick look at the news in Spain, we talk about the phenomenon of the dwarf planet Pluto entering the constellation of Aquarius with Laia Martínez, an amateur astrologist. We also learn about the differences between the fields of astrology and astronomy with Telmo Fernández, astrophysicist and director of the Planetarium of Madrid.

In this broadcast, we talk Valencia's Fallas Festival with the artist of last year's main falla, Antonio Segura Dulk... And after that, we learn about The Spanish Royal Academy of History's new web portal, which features interactive world map that allows the user to pinpoint and learn about any historical event with connections to the Spanish-speaking world... At the end of the broadcast, we hear from our correspondant in Beirut, Elsa Yasbek, about the current economic crisis in Lebanon.