Amid the gilded splendor of a white-tie state dinner at the White House — with billionaires lining the guest list and presidential pageantry on full display — King Charles III says it was something far more stirring than the menu or the company that left the deepest mark on him: the music.
The British monarch, who joined Queen Camilla on a four-day U.S. visit marking the 250th anniversary of American independence, opened up about his favorite moment of the evening just one day after the glittering April 28, 2026, banquet hosted by President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump.
Speaking with Blackstone chairman and CEO Stephen Schwarzman during a trade and business event at Rockefeller Center in New York City on April 29, the king said he was “so impressed by the music from the military,” singling out the performances by musicians from the U.S. Marines, Army and Air Force that punctuated the formal evening.
A Lifelong Passion for Classical Music
Charles’ enthusiasm for the service bands surprised no one familiar with his decades-long love affair with music — and especially classical compositions. Royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith recently traced that fascination back to his childhood, noting that when Charles was just seven years old, his maternal grandmother, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, took him to see the Bolshoi Ballet at Covent Garden.
He was, in his own words, “hooked for life.” The Queen Mother, herself a music aficionado, introduced young Charles to Mozart, and at age 14 he accompanied her to a Jacqueline du Pré concert, where the future king was awestruck by the rich, deep sound of the cello — an instrument he would later learn to play himself.
That musical sensibility has shaped major moments in his family life as well. Ahead of her 2018 wedding to Prince Harry, Meghan Markle revealed in a recording later shared in a Windsor Castle exhibit that Charles played a hands-on role in selecting music for the ceremony. “We worked quite a lot with the Prince of Wales, who has incredible taste in specifically classical music, so it was really fun to spend some time going through selections with him,” she said. Charles, who became monarch in 2022, then held the title of Prince of Wales.
Historic Address on Capitol Hill
The state dinner served as the dazzling capstone to the Washington, D.C., portion of the royal tour, which began with a ceremonial arrival on April 27, when Charles and Camilla touched down in the U.S. capital and were greeted by President Trump and the first lady.
The next day, Charles made history by becoming only the second British monarch ever to address a joint meeting of Congress — following the precedent set by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who delivered her own remarks on Capitol Hill in 1991. The address underscored the diplomatic weight of a visit timed to honor America’s semiquincentennial. The tour also yielded a tangible diplomatic win: President Trump announced the removal of tariffs on Scottish whisky, crediting the king and queen’s intervention for the decision.
From Ground Zero to Harlem Grown
After the white-tie banquet, the royal couple traveled to New York City, where their first stop was a solemn visit to the National September 11 Memorial, paying their respects ahead of the upcoming 25th anniversary of the attacks. From there, the king and queen split for separate daytime engagements: Charles toured the urban farming nonprofit Harlem Grown, while Camilla attended a literary event at the New York Public Library.
They reunited that evening for an arts reception at Christie’s auction house, before later marking the 50th anniversary of The King’s Trust at a celebratory gathering — a milestone for the charitable organization Charles founded decades ago.
Final Stops and a Solo Journey
The royals’ final stateside appearances took them to Virginia, where they joined community festivities celebrating America’s 250th anniversary and shined a spotlight on environmental and agricultural initiatives — issues long championed by the king. The Virginia leg officially closed out the diplomatic portion of the tour on May 1.
From there, the royal couple parted ways at the Virginia street party with a rare public kiss before Camilla returned home to the United Kingdom. Charles then traveled to Bermuda for a two-day solo tour — not only his first visit as monarch to a British overseas territory, but the first visit by a reigning king in Bermuda’s 400-year history. During the visit, he toured a museum exhibit on the island’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, watched a performance by the National Gombey Dance Troupe, and officially launched Project Nova, a U.K. Space Agency initiative to track space debris, before departing on May 3.
For all the diplomatic milestones, headline-making speeches and high-wattage encounters of the four-day visit, it was the brass and strings of America’s military musicians that the king couldn’t stop talking about — a reminder, perhaps, that the most powerful diplomacy sometimes comes through a melody. Charles’ devotion to music has, true to his own words, kept him hooked for life.
