Maestro James Judd presents the young Mahler and Dimitar Hristov in the “Bulgaria” hall –

/ world today news/ The British conductor James Judd and our famous pianist Milena Mollova are the stars of the concert on May 16 in Bulgaria Hall, in which youth and experience meet. The program will include Mahler’s fiery First Symphony and Dimitar Hristov’s First Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.

Maestro Judd is the music director of the Little Orchestra Society – New York, Daejeon Philharmonic (South Korea) and Slovak Philharmonic. His fiery musicianship and charismatic presence have won him fans all over the world. Known for his highly communicative style and interesting, imaginative programs, he receives non-stop engagements from Prague to Tokyo, Istanbul to Adelaide. During his eight years as music director of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the ensemble gained a new look and wide international recognition with recordings for the company Naxosthe tours of Europe and Australia and the orchestra’s first appearance in the cycle BBC Proms in London. Among his commitments in recent years are the performances of A military requiem of Britton in Bucharest and Meat of Bernstein at the Radio France Festival, stage productions of Carmina Burana in the picturesque desert ruins of Masada, a concert with the Monte Carlo Philharmonic at the Royal Palace of Monaco, a month-long tour with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and René Fleming, concerts with the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, the Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra, the Slovenian National Orchestra, the North Netherlands Orchestra and Vadim Repin , a series of concerts in Switzerland with the Argentine Philharmonic and a recording with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Thomas Irnberger for the company Gramolathree concerts in Berlin as part of Yehudi Menuhin’s centenary celebrations in the famous Koncerthausa tour in China and two concerts with the Viennese Concert already in the first month after the opening of the magnificent new Dubai Opera, as well as in the hall of Music club.

The world-renowned pianist and pedagogue Milena Mollova is among the few lucky Bulgarian musicians who have been trained in the school of such giants of musical performance and creativity as Prof. Emil Gilels, Prof. Dimitar Nenov, Prof. Panka Pelishek. Her path on the concert podium is dotted with successes, awards, tours and artistic peaks, with multiple concerts in all countries of Europe, Japan, USA, Canada. During the many years of her brilliant career, Milena Mollova has been a soloist of the most important Bulgarian and European symphony orchestras and has played under the baton of the greatest Bulgarian conductors such as Sasha Popov, Dobrin Petkov, Konstantin Iliev, Vasil Kazandzhiev and world celebrities such as Kiril Kondrashin , Kazioshi Akiyama, Rudolf Baumgartner, Georges Zipin and many others.

Milena Mollova is among the most inspired interpreters of Dimitar Hristov’s Piano Concerto, which has long since become a Bulgarian classic. When he wrote it, the composer was only 22 years old, a student in the IV year of the Academy of Music, but he already demonstrated the maturity of his talent and his unconventional ideas.

Mahler began writing his first symphony only at the age of 24, inspired by his love for the charming singer Johanna Richter. But as he later noted in a letter to his friend Max Marshall: “The symphony was born from the love episode, but this external event served as an occasion and is not the content of the work”. However, experts claim that it is a kind of biography of the musical colossus’s youth. To this day, it remains a favorite piece in the repertoire of major symphony orchestras.

Tickets for the concert are still available at the Bulgaria Hall box office, eventim, epaygo and ticketsbg.