Forget haunted houses: one of Seattle’s most striking buildings is getting a suitably spooky makeover this Halloween. The National Nordic Museum will swap its usual daytime atmosphere for eerie flickering candlelight and spine chilling live music during a special Halloween concert.
On October 30, Candlelight: A Haunted Evening of Halloween Classics is bringing thousands of candles to the iconic Ballard building, where a live string quartet will work through a setlist packed with horror themes, sinister classical pieces and a few Halloween staples that need almost no introduction.
All of a sudden, Ballard is a little less Nordic-chic and a lot more… haunting
There’s music from Stranger Things, Psycho, Halloween and The Exorcist. But, then there’s The Addams Family theme, “Time Warp,” “Ghostbusters,” and “Thriller.” The evening covers quite a lot of ground between genuine unease and campy fun.
But, the venue. The venue!
The National Nordic Museum is offering a spectacular way to spend Halloween in Seattle this year.
Set in Ballard, a neighborhood shaped by generations of Nordic immigration, the National Nordic Museum was designed to evoke fjords and carved ice. Its sharp angles and bright, contemporary interiors feel worlds away from a traditional concert hall, which should make the glow of thousands of candles all the more dramatic after dark.
23 October 2026 18:30 + more dates
The National Nordic Museum
And the music is suitably ominous, too
Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre” appears alongside Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain,” while the furious second movement of Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 brings a darker kind of tension to the programme.
Then there’s Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells,” forever associated with The Exorcist, alongside Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho prelude and John Carpenter’s famously nerve-rattling Halloween theme.
And while the programme travels from Transylvania to Hawkins and beyond, the music will be brought to life by local talent: the Seattle String Quartet, a professional ensemble made up of musicians from the region. Without the original film sound design, synths or studio effects, the melodies have nowhere to hide — which is rather effective when the melody in question was written to make you nervous.
Did you know?
John Carpenter’s Halloween theme feels unsettling even on its own, partly because its main motif is built around an irregular 5/4 meter. That off-kilter rhythm creates a subtle sense of instability before the synths, visuals and horror-movie action even enter the picture.
Candlelight: A Haunted Evening of Halloween Classics
4.94 (32 reviews)23 October 2026 18:30 + more dates
The National Nordic Museum
