Next up in TSO conductor search: Stilian Kirov

Throughout the 2015-16 Tucson Symphony Orchestra season, we are featuring conductors vying to become the next TSO music director.

Who: Stilian Kirov, 31, music director of the Bakersfield Symphony in California and Symphony in C in New Jersey.

Concert: “Masters Mozart & Beethoven” to open the MasterWorks Series season. The concert is anchored by the magnificent Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and the overture to Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.”

Bio at a glance: The Bulgaria native graduated from Juilliard and immediately dove into a career that included a three-year tenure as associate conductor with the Seattle Symphony, which wrapped up at the end of last season. He now multitasks with two orchestras after his recent appointment to the music director post with Symphony in C, the New Jersey ensemble for young professionals whose past music directors included outgoing New York Philharmonic conductor Alan Gilbert. Kirov also leads the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra in California; he is the youngest music director in the 83-year-old ensemble’s history. Other previous posts have included associate conductor of the Memphis Symphony and music director of the Memphis Youth Symphony Program. He has lived in the U.S. since 2007 and now resides in New Jersey with his wife and year-old son.

TSO history: He made his lone guest-conducting appearance in November 2014, also with the MasterWorks Series. He led the orchestra in a program that included Rossini’s “Barber of Seville,” Fauré’s suite “Pelléas et Mélisande” and Bartók’s “Romanian Folk Dances.”

Something you’ve come to know about the Old Pueblo: “I really fell in love with the city. I think it’s a fantastic city, very vibrant. I had a chance to take a walk downtown and at the university. It was very exciting to see how flourishing the city was. And the city was very culturally rich, not only from a musical perspective but from the food and artistic atmosphere. You feel inspired just walking on the streets.”

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Fondest memory of past experience here: “Working with the musicians was a thrill. They are wonderful musicians and passionate about the music. It’s a dream of every conductor to find an orchestra where the musicians are passionate about the music. I was very impressed when we visited Bisbee, and that was a very special place. I walked around the city, but it was almost like a city from the movies. It was very beautiful.”

Overall conducting philosophy: “It should be all about the music. ... Musicians have the personal input into what we are doing, but I want to ultimately put on an exciting experience for the audience, but we have to be faithful to what the composer intended. … We do change lives one way or another with music. If we are able to create an emotional experience that is unforgettable, that helps somebody and touches people’s hearts, then we are successful in what we do.”

Something we should know about you before showtime: “There are probably a lot of things, but I don’t want the concert to be about me. It’s about the music itself. So I think if we have a rendezvous around the music, that’s the best way to get to know each other.“

About your program: “Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is obviously one of the biggest masterpieces ever written. … It’s a very, very important symphony because it served as an inspiration to many future composers, but it is also very dramatic. It’s very emotional. ... The second part of the program we will open with another dramatic piece, Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’ overture. There is a little bit of a connection there.

“The opera ‘Don Giovanni’ was supposed to premiere in Prague, but it wasn’t because of some scheduling problem. ... This connection with the Czech Republic is also very strong in Dvorák’s ‘Czech’ suite, which very much highlights a lot of Eastern European and Czech folk tunes. A lot of Czech dances are incorporated into the suite.

“And we also have Honegger’s ‘Pastorale d’été’ — that is a beautiful piece. ... It’s a very serene, very calm, very beautiful piece. I really believe it is a concert-pleaser. It’s not so often performed, and yet it’s brilliant in many places.”