New Seattle Center festival highlights classical music
Whether you're a longtime classical music connoisseur or a casual enjoyer of Bach and Gershwin, Seattle Center is the place to be Sunday. The first-ever Seattle Center Classical festival is a free, open-to-the-public classical music event featuring six performances from some of Seattle's leading music organizations.
"You don't have to be knowledgeable about classical music or opera or symphonic music, anything like that," said James Robinson, artistic director of Seattle Opera, one of the participating organizations. "The point is to come in, experience it and see how you feel."
The festival will run from noon to 6 p.m., taking place on the north International Fountain lawn. Attendees are encouraged to come and go as they please throughout the afternoon, as no tickets are required; just show up, find a spot on the lawn, relax and enjoy.
Other participants include the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Early Music Seattle and Seattle Symphony, all of whom will perform selections and medleys from their respective repertoires.
The day will conclude with a community singalong led by conductors and singers from the Greater Seattle Choral Consortium. Though it may sound intimidating, Scott Kovacs - a founding board member of the consortium - emphasized that all levels of musical talent are welcome and encouraged to participate.
"We want as many people singing as possible," Kovacs said. "We don't want people to feel shy about singing. We want them to feel like they can join in and have some fun."
Classical music radio station Classical KING is the main organizer of the event alongside Seattle Center, which is providing the bulk of the financial and logistical support. Rob Wiseman, CEO of Classical KING as of March, said the radio station has a history of promoting multicultural music festivals taking place at Seattle Center.
Classical KING had talked with Seattle Center for several years about doing some kind of festival, and this is our first attempt to do that," Wiseman said.
Wiseman said they are expecting thousands of attendees to pass through the festival Sunday.
"We live in a community with some incredible musicianship happening from organizations of all kinds," Wiseman said. "This is an opportunity to take some of those great artists and put them out into the community in a space that's free and really inviting."
Wiseman emphasized that Classical KING has maintained close relationships with many of the featured organizations - they even share a building with Seattle Opera - but this is a rare instance of being able to come together for a collaborative public performance.
"We're always in communication with each other, but we rarely get the opportunity to collaborate in this way," Robinson said.
The opera company will offer performances from "The Pirates of Penzance, "La Bohème" and "Die Fledermaus," which Robinson noted are some of the most popular in its repertory. In addition, Seattle Opera will have a pop-up booth where attendees can try on authentic and extravagant opera costumes.
Other activities, pop-ups and family-friendly programming will take place around the lawn during live performances, including an "instrument petting zoo" and hands-on music education. Other arts partners of the festival will have information booths and tables, including KUOW, TeenTix, WALKDONTRUN, SIFF and more.
Festival organizers agreed that lowering or eliminating barriers to live performing arts is crucial to their mission.
"There are probably many barriers to entry, price being one of them," Kovacs said. "What might also be a barrier is people feel as though you have to have special knowledge to somehow enjoy opera or ballet. And we really want to dispel that myth. … Just because someone doesn't necessarily speak German doesn't mean that you can't attend an opera in German and enjoy it."
At its core, the festival is not only meant to bring together prominent classical music organizations, but to bring together music audiences in an enjoyable, laid-back and memorable way.
"We know as the leaders, as the facilitators of the classical music community in Seattle, that we're stronger together," Kovacs said. "By sharing an audience … we are developing a more vibrant and more sustainable cultural sector in our region."
Though there are currently no plans for a second iteration of the event, Wiseman hopes the festival is the first of many.
"We love the idea of it becoming an annual event," he said. "Classical music is something that can be important to anybody, and is really something that we want everybody in the community to have access to if they want to find value in it."
This story has been updated to reflect that KING FM is now called Classical KING.
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This story was originally published June 30, 2026 at 4:55 PM.