Today is the day for ninth annual Symphony in the Flint Hills. Held at Rosalia Ranch in Butler County this year, the Kansas City Symphony will play for 6,000 – 7,000 people amidst the idyllic setting of the Flint Hills.

Tents at this year’s Symphony in the Flint Hills

The event celebrates the heritage and ecology of this important ecosystem. Along with the headlining evening show, the event has lectures and presentations on the tallgrass prairie and Flint Hills. There are also prairie walks and covered wagon rides, and after the event, guests are invited to stay and stargaze. For kids, and kids at here, there’s the “Instrument Petting Zoo” where you can play with different instruments.

From the Symphony in the Flint Hills site on just how this unique event came to be:

In 1994, Matfield Green rancher Jane Koger celebrated her birthday by inviting the public to a “Symphony on the Prairie.” More than 3,000 people from far and wide congregated at her Homestead Ranch for a magical union between symphonic music and the prairie landscape.

Ten years after Jane Koger’s legendary birthday concert, Chase, Lyon, Morris and Wabaunsee County leaders founded Symphony in the Flint Hills, Inc. to heighten the appreciation and knowledge of the tallgrass prairie. In 2006, the organization held the first of its annual prairie concerts, a Kansas tradition that now attracts approximately 7,000 attendees from all over the world.

If you missed out this year, put the event on your calendar for next June.

Photo by Kansas Tourism