Rossen Milanov

Rossen Milanov is a conductor known in the US for long-running music directorships, including the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. He conducts a wide range of orchestral repertoire from classical staples to new commissions, and this season he leads the Columbus Symphony across nearly its entire subscription series, from Rachmaninoff and Bartók to Beethoven's Ninth.

This season's Columbus programs show a conductor comfortable moving between eras and moods within a single evening. Expect large-scale Romantic and early-20th-century works, Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto, Brahms's Second Symphony, Mahler's Fifth, paired with new or lesser-heard pieces like Dobrinka Tabakova's "Orpheus' Comet" and Gregory Spears's "The Mysteries." He also takes on major choral-orchestral works, Verdi's Requiem, Haydn's "The Creation," and Beethoven's Ninth, suggesting a conductor who paces long structures patiently and gives singers and orchestra room to build toward climactic moments. The "Postcards in Music" program, built entirely around evocative orchestral tone-painting from Respighi, Ravel, Falla, and Debussy, points to a taste for color and atmosphere as well as architecture.