In Sunday’s (1/12) New York Times, Tammy La Gorce writes about Rossen Milanov, music director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra and Symphony in C, both based in New Jersey. At the Princeton orchestra, “Since taking over in 2010, he has worked to enhance the musical experience for what he called his ‘highly intelligent, sophisticated audience here’ by weaving additional learning opportunities into the group’s concerts. ‘We have a unique type of audience in Princeton that wants to be challenged intellectually’ … Thus Mr. Milanov will lead a preconcert talk about a 2012 concerto by the Spanish composer Óscar Navarro that the orchestra will perform [on January 19] with the Spanish clarinetist Jose Franch-Ballester…. Mr. Milanov … has no family in Philadelphia, where he has lived since 2000. ‘The orchestra becomes your family. You become like their father,’ he said…. Mr. Milanov’s paternal leanings may be especially apparent … [at] Symphony in C, based in Camden, … a training orchestra to allow musicians who are either students in college music programs and conservatories or recent graduates to ‘hone their work,’ as he put it.… ‘Their level of playing is unbelievable,’ he said.” The article notes that Milanov is also in his second season as principal conductor of Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias in Oviedo, Spain.
Posted January 13, 2014
Photo of Rossen Milanov by Matt Rainey (New York Times)
