The 27th Annual Italian Festival in Seattle

Italy lovers and fans: sign up your calendar!

 

The 27th Annual Italian Festival is coming up from September 27th to September 28th at Seattle Center.

Like every year, walking in the beautiful open space at the foot of the Space Needle, will feel like being in the center of “Little Italy” with countless events, such as a bocce ball tournament, a grape-stomping competition, Italian music, Italian crafts, a classical Italian Vehicle Exhibit and the swirling smell of Italian food of course.

 

For those who are not familiar with Festa Italiana, this is a good time to explore the beauty of Italy. Festa Italiana is a wonderful organization that puts together an annual weeklong series of events on the last week of September, closing with the most important Italian Festival at Seattle Center.

 

Since fall of 1988, Festa Italiana has been presenting the Italian Festival at Seattle Center, seeing an average attendance of 30,000 patrons each year and some years as high as 10,000.

This year in particular, the calendar is full of important events. 

 

Here are a few: food vendors, wine gardens, puppet theatre and an Italian photo exhibit honoring the “old country”.

 

A beautiful Historical Photo Exhibit with hundreds of images that pictured the earliest Italian immigrants to the Pacific NW. What festival would be complete without Italian food. Each year The Great Italian Chefs from around the area demonstrate their cooking skills and love for Italy. In years past chefs Mario Batali, Giuliano Bugali, Biba Caggiano, Michael Chiarello, Rocco DiSpirito, Mary Ann Esposito, Michol Negrin, Christina Pirello, Nick Stellino, Anne Burrell and Rossella Rago each brought their own perspectives to cooking. 

 

For those interested in the music scene, singers, musicians, bands, orchestras and dance troupes from Italy, United States and Canada will delight the festival.

 

A special grazie goes to the event’s director since 1993, Dennis Caldirola, whose expertise and dedication make the Italian Festival what it is and whose direction in fundraising not only makes this annual event possible, but also very successful. 

 

For more info visit http://www.festaseattle.com/