Maestro Milanov Continues New Access Concert Series with SHOSTAKOVICH NO. 5: MUSIC & POLITICS

New in 2015-16, the CSO's innovative Access Series offers audiences a deeper connection with great works of classical music and the musicians of the CSO. Designed and hosted by CSO Music Director Rossen Milanov, these budget-friendly concerts will feature a single work that will be examined bit-by-bit with the CSO playing a few measures at a time. After intermission, the entire piece will be played without interruption, providing audiences with a new appreciation of its meaning and context beyond mere beauty.

"Shostakovich No. 5: Music and Politics" will explore the creation, context, and political and personal messages of this incredibly powerful, and potentially life-endangering, work by the prominent Russian composer and pianist Dmitri Shostakovich. This CSO Access Series concert event will be presented at the Ohio Theatre (39 E. State St.) on Thursday, January 7, at 6:30 pm. The concert will be followed by a vodka tasting with the CSO musicians in the Ohio Theatre's Galbreath Pavilion.

General admission tickets are $15 and can be purchased at the CAPA Ticket Center (39 E. State St.), all Ticketmaster outlets, and www.ticketmaster.com. To purchase tickets by phone, please call (614) 228-8600 or (800) 745-3000.

The 2015-16 Access Series is presented with support from PNC Arts Alive, a multi-year, $2.5 million initiative of the PNC Foundation that supports visual and performing arts groups with the goal of increasing arts access and engagement in new and innovative ways.

About CSO Music Director Rossen Milanov

Respected and admired by audiences and musicians alike, Rossen Milanov is the new Music Director of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, and begins his tenure with transformative and creative ideas for new programming and expanding the orchestra's reach to new audiences.

Recently completing his first season with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra to enthusiastic acclaim, Milanov is also the Music Director of the Princeton Symphony and of the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias (OSPA) in Spain. During the 2015-16 season, he is dedicating the Princeton concert season to the creativity of women, showcasing the compositions of some of the most respected emerging female composers, such as Anna Clyne, Caroline Shaw, and Sarah Kirkland Snyder. With OSPA, he celebrates the orchestra's 25th anniversary with 25 new works and premiere performances in Spain. He will also be conducting a new production of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" at the Zurich Opera.

In 2015, he completed a 15-year tenure as Music Director of the nationally recognized training orchestra, Symphony in C, in New Jersey.

Milanov studied conducting at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, where he received the Bruno Walter Memorial Scholarship.