Stilian Kirov

Stilian Kirov is a conductor appearing with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic on a program titled "Sound of Innovation 2," featuring music built around birds and pastoral imagery. Listeners can expect a well-paced evening drawing together orchestral tone painting from three different composers.

This program groups three works that each use the orchestra to paint scenes from nature. Respighi's "Gli uccelli" ("The Birds") arranges old lute and harpsichord tunes into short movements, each one imitating a different bird through instrumental color, a dove's coo, a hen's clucking, a nightingale's trill. Vaughan Williams' "The Lark Ascending" turns the solo violin into a bird itself, spinning long, hovering lines over a quiet orchestral bed, evoking a skylark rising over the English countryside. Ravel's "Ma mère l'oye" ("Mother Goose"), written first for piano then orchestrated, retells fairy tales in miniature movements with delicate, glowing scoring. Audiences unfamiliar with Kirov's own conducting style can expect the program itself to carry the evening: a set of pieces valued for clarity, restraint, and vivid instrumental color rather than large-scale drama.