Conductor
Biography
An oboist before he was a conductor, Milanov studied both at the Bulgarian National Academy of Music in his native Sofia, took a master's degree in oboe at Duquesne University, and went on to Curtis and Juilliard for conducting. Eleven years with the Philadelphia Orchestra formed him — assistant conductor from 2000, associate conductor from 2003 — alongside the artistic direction of the orchestra's Mann Center summer seasons between 2006 and 2010. He was chief conductor of the Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra from 2003 to 2008, and since 2015 has held the music directorships of the Columbus Symphony and the Chautauqua Symphony; he also directs the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, has led the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra from 2018, and is principal conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias. His recordings include Shostakovich's Fifteenth Symphony, Brahms's First and Stravinsky's Petrushka. Bulgaria named him Musician of the Year in 2005. More than two hundred performances came out of the Philadelphia years, and in Sofia he led the New Symphony Orchestra for seventeen seasons until 2013, as he led Symphony in C in New Jersey for fifteen until 2015; since 2022 he has also directed the Princeton Festival. In the theatre he has conducted Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Komische Oper Berlin, the Spanish premiere of Mazeppa and a Bluebeard's Castle in Oviedo that was judged the best Spanish production of 2015, and Alexei Ratmansky's Swan Lake with the Zurich Ballet, and he has given first performances of works by Derek Bermel, Mason Bates, Caroline Shaw and Gabriel Prokofiev.