Bella Hristova performs with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Rossen Milano in January. Photo courtesy of Princeton Symphony Orchestra.
In Wednesday’s (1/14) TAP Into Princetown (New Jersey), Linda Sipprelle writes, “Rossen Milanov, conductor of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra (PSO), is recognized for his adventurous programming of contemporary music. This enthusiasm was highlighted during the January 10 and 11 concerts in Richardson Auditorium on the Princeton University campus. The orchestral work ‘Cipres’ by Andreia Pinto Correia was the concert’s opening piece…. In her charming and informative pre-concert comments, Pinto Correia said she had been inspired to write ‘Cipres’ by one of the lesser-known poems of the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. The eight lines of the poem’s text pair different species of tree (cypress, poplar, willow), depicted by Garcia Lorca in his poem, with the poem’s various forms of water (static, crystalline, static)…. Pinto Correia dedicated ‘Cipres,’ which received a cordial response from the capacity audience, to Milanov and the Columbus Symphony Orchestra.” “Cipres” was commissioned by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Orchestral Commissions Program, an initiative of the League of American Orchestras in partnership with the American Composers Orchestra. “The PSO and [soloist Bella] Hristova presented a musically intelligent rendition of Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1—a rarely heard piece … The appreciative audience recognized the stellar performance with a standing ovation.” The orchestra also performed Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 1, earning “a warm and enthusiastic reception.”
