The Festival opens its gates for the first time on 24 May 1970. Step by step it establishes itself as the most important international event for Sofia and the country.

     The annual Festival is held in the best concert halls of Sofia: Bulgaria Hall (big and chamber), halls of the National Palace of Culture, the National Gallery of Fine Arts, etc., which creates possibilities for using the interior and exterior areas for advertising purposes. The Festival collaborates very actively with the foreign embassies and cultural institutes in the country.

     The Festival receives international recognition by becoming a member of the European Festivals Association for Music, Theatre and Dance, which members are prestigious festivals from the whole of Europe. A proof for the high authority gained by the Sofia Music Weeks is the participation in the Festival of symphony orchestras, such as the Vienna, Berlin and Leningrad Philharmonic, opera theatres and ballet companies from Italy, France, Sweden, and other countries, conductors of world-wide eminence (Claudio Abbado, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, etc.), prominent musicians and singers, world-known chamber ensembles.