The conductor Rosen Gergov will reveal his brilliant talent on 18 and 20 March at the Sofia Opera, where he will conduct Igor Stravinsky's two ballets, "Petrushka" and "The Firebird". With them our first opera and ballet theater will celebrate 140 years since the birth of the genius composer Igor Stravinsky.

Gergov is recognized and famous not only in the Austrian capital but also around the world. He is one of the most recorded classical musicians, with a huge, challenging repertoire – from Mozart to Stravinsky. The maestro has won wide international recognition, both for his performances on the concert stand and on the opera stages. His work at Opera North, England, and at the Bregenzer Festspiele, Austria, confirms his unique abilities and creative talent among the younger generation of conductors.

Gaining impressive experience, Gergov directs spectacles at a number of festivals around the world, where he conducts famous classical composers.

Among the orchestras he works with are the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon, the Orquestra Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias, Ensemble Orche4stral Paris, Kyoto Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, Osaka Century Orchestra, Polish National Radio Orchestra, the orchestras of Basel, Kyoto, Sapporo, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Jena, Graz, Nagoya, Norrlandsoperan and many others.

Maestro Gergov's ascending career began at the National School of Music "L. Pipkov” in Sofia, first starting to play the piano and later the clarinet. He took conducting lessons with the famous conductor Mihail Angelov. At the age of 18 he enrolled major conducting in the class of Leopold Hager at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Gergov has been in the Austrian capital since 1999. He was soon noticed by Seiji Ozawa, who invited him to the Tanglewood Music Festival.

He later became Ozawa's assistant in Vienna. Rosen Gergov is a laureate of the First International Competition for Conductors named after Evgeniy Svetlanov, organized by the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra. He later made his debut at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon, conducting a series of concerts with the Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa. Highlights from past seasons include projects with the SWR Symphony Orchestra, the North Holland Orchestra, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Chinese National Symphony Orchestra and the Sichuan Symphony Orchestra.

On 18 and 20 March, the audience will have the chance to see the artistic abilities not only of the conductor Rosen Gergov, but also of the brilliant performance of the ballet troupe of the Sofia Opera. With the magnificent ballets "Petrushka" and "The Firebird" Igor Stravinsky became exceptionally famous. Since their premieres in 1910 and 1911, they have been watched with great interest around the world.