On March 10th the Bulgarian New Symphony Orchestra marked its 20th anniversary with a concert. The programme included Respighi's Suite No 3, Symphony No. 4 by Mendelssohn, and the Piano Concerto No. 20 by Mozart. Soloist was former Julliard School student Lora Chekoratova, who has won a number of prestigious awards around the world. Conductor was Rosen Milanov.

The New Symphony Orchestra was created in 1991 by critic Yulia Hristova. Her idea was to create an orchestra of young musicians without much experience, who could further develop their skills being a part of a large orchestra. These days most of the New Symphony Orchestra musicians perform in leading orchestras all across the world. Here is more from founder Yulia Hristova.

“Our first concert took place in October 1991. Unfortunately, we did not get any support from the critics, who were very cautious at that time. Things changed 2 years later with an article by Razmari Statelova, entitled ‘A Phenomenon Called New Symphony Orchestra.’ After this article people started to pay more attention to us. The orchestra has gone through a lot of changes for these 20 years. I also learned a lot during all this time. When I established the orchestra I wanted to compensate for the lack of an institution that helped the development of young musicians. We are the only private orchestra in Bulgaria, which has concerts all year round.”

( Performance of Symphony No. 100 by Haydn. Conductor is Petko Dimitrov)

Conductor Rosen Milanov has been music director of the New Symphony orchestra since 1997. Here is more from Yulia Hristova.
“We are very glad that Rosen has been working for so long with us. This is the only orchestra, which has not changed its director for 15 years. I have known Rosen Milanov since I was a student. I had to write a critical review of one of his concerts. My first meeting with him was very memorable. Later I invited him to become a music director of the orchestra. At that time he was in the US, studying conductorship,” Ms. Hristova recalls.
(Fragment of Claude Debussy’s Play of the Waves. Conductor is Rossen Milanov)

The concert on March 10 was just one of the planned events that are to mark the 20th anniversary of the New Symphony Orchestra in Bulgaria. Yulia Hristova told us more:
“We have more than 400 records of our concerts and we intend to publish them in a series of CDs. We are to stage about 10 concerts with the support of the Ministry of Culture to mark the 20th anniversary. The idea is to gather on one stage many of the musicians who worked in the orchestra in the past. More than 300 musicians who used to perform with the New Symphony Orchestra are now working abroad. The good news is that there are a number of talented young people we work with these days.”
(Fragment of Part 3 of the Symphony No 100 by Haydn. Conductor is Petko Dimitrov)

English: Alexander Markov