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PSO Music Director Rossen Milanov Conducts Concerts for 2,500 School Children at Richardson Auditorium

Princeton, NJ, April 28, 2010 … On Tuesday, May 18, the Princeton Symphony Orchestra will present three performances of “BRAVO! Tells Tales,” a free, school-day concert for children who participated in this year’s BRAVO! music education program. More than 2,500 students from throughout Central New Jersey will attend the concerts, the culmination of a year-long curriculum to encourage young audiences to incorporate music in their lives.

“BRAVO! Tells Tales,” featuring Francis Poulenc’s “The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant” and Gioachino Rossini’s Overture to “William Tell,” will be conducted by PSO Music Director Rossen Milanov. “Babar” will be narrated by Michael Boudewyns and Sara Valentine of the acting ensemble Really Inventive Stuff, which provides vaudeville-inspired performances for orchestras, museums, libraries and theaters. The PSO will perform at 9:30 and 11:30 a.m. and 1:15 p.m. at Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall on the Princeton University campus.

Mr. Milanov’s active participation in “BRAVO! Tells Tales” is part of his ongoing advocacy of music appreciation in Princeton area classrooms, from kindergarten to college. “I feel that being personally involved in programming and conducting education concerts is one of the most important missions in my professional life as a musician,” says Mr. Milanov. “We have the responsibility not only for providing exposure to the arts but, most importantly, to pass on our love and passion for music to the next generation.”

Mr. Milanov will further promote the upcoming concerts by taking on the role of narrator in a 45-minute family presentation of “The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant” on May 15 in the Community Room of the Princeton Public Library, 65 Witherspoon St. Open to the general public, with free admission, the mini-concert features Francis Poulenc’s piano arrangement of “Babar,” played by Sylvie Webb. For more information, click to www.princetonlibrary.org.

About Rossen Milanov, PSO Music Director

Rossen Milanov’s place as “one of the most promising figures in the upcoming generation of conductors” (The Seattle Times, February 2009) has recently been recognized with his appointment as Music Director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra. This season, he makes a series of international debuts, including performances conducting the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington), the Rochester Philharmonic, the Hyogo Symphony (Japan), the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, and the China Philharmonic. He continues to serve as Artistic Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts and is Associate Conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

A committed supporter of youth and music, Mr. Milanov is Music Director of the New Symphony Orchestra (Bulgaria) and Symphony in C, one of the USA’s leading professional training orchestras. He has led a tour with the Australian Youth Orchestra, concerts with the Aspen Chamber Symphony, and was Music Director of the Chicago Youth Symphony from 1997 to 2001.

Mr. Milanov studied conducting at the Juilliard School, where he received the Bruno Walter Memorial Scholarship; the Curtis Institute of Music; Duquesne University, and the Bulgarian National Academy of Music. He has received the Award for Extraordinary Contribution to Bulgarian Culture, awarded by the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture. In 2005, he was chosen as Bulgaria’s Musician of the Year. 

About the Princeton Symphony Orchestra and BRAVO!

Founded in 1980 by Portia Sonnenfeld, the Princeton Symphony Orchestra has been hailed by critics as New Jersey’s “virtuoso orchestra.” Over the course of its 30-year history, the orchestra’s leadership has invested in artistic excellence as well as community and educational concerts and programs that contribute broadly to civic life and establish the PSO in partnerships with local educational, arts and social service organizations. The PSO has been designated as a Major Arts Organization by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and is a multiple recipient of the council’s Citation of Excellence.

The BRAVO! program enriches music education in local schools by providing a comprehensive and sustained introduction to the symphony orchestra, integrated within a school’s regular music curriculum. BRAVO! establishes PSO musicians in permanent teaching partnerships at more than 30 public, private and special needs elementary schools throughout Central New Jersey. BRAVO! also sponsors master classes for talented high school instrumentalists, conducting workshops for regional youth orchestras, and the Listen Up! program for middle-school students. Listen Up! invites students to create art in response to what they hear at PSO concerts. All BRAVO! participants and their families may purchase discounted tickets to the PSO’s Classical Series concerts.

The Robert Wood Johnson 1962 Charitable Trust is the lead funder of PSO’s BRAVO! programs. The May 18 BRAVO! concerts at Richardson Auditorium are made possible, in part, by gifts from donors who attended the PSO’s annual benefit gala, with corporate support from Verizon Wireless, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Goldman, Sachs & Co., Ortho-McNeil-Janssen, WithumSmith+Brown, Cardinal Partners, Tyco International, Integra Neuro Sciences and Wells Fargo Advisors. Princeton University has underwritten PSO’s children’s concerts for more than 10 years.

Please visit our website at www.princetonsymphony.org or call the PSO at (609) 497-0020.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

CONTACT:

Melanie Clarke

PSO Executive Director

(609) 497-0020

melcog@hotmail.com