Biography

Milan Milisavljević is Principal Viola with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Dubbed “the engine propelling the performance forward” by the New York Classical Review, his performances combine intense expression with an immediate and profound link to the listener and have won much critical acclaim.

The Strad magazine has described his playing as “very imaginative, with a fine, cultured tone.” Milan’s solo album Sonata-Song, released by Delos Music, has received glowing reviews, with the recording of A. Khachaturian’s Solo Sonata on the album hailed as “definitive”. Milan has appeared as soloist throughout the world, with orchestras such as the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Philarmonic Orchestras of Belgrade, Medellín, and Boca del Río, Aspen Sinfonia, New York Classical Players, Classical Tahoe, and others. In chamber music, he has collaborated with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Augustin Hadelich, Cho-Liang Lin, Joseph Kalichstein, members of the Guarneri and Mendelssohn String Quartets, and performs regularly at Metropolitan Opera Orchestra Chamber Music Series at Carnegie Hall.

Milan has been heard worldwide on countless recordings and broadcasts of the MET. He previously served as its Assistant Principal Viola for eleven seasons. Formerly of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, he has served as guest Principal Viola of many orchestras, such as the Toronto Symphony.

Milan is on the viola faculty at Mannes School of Music and New York University. He has given classes at universities and conservatories worldwide, such as at the Juilliard School and the Rubin Academy of Music, as well as at Verbier Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, the Music Academy of the West, and the Interlochen Center for the Arts. Deeply committed to works of underrepresented composers, Milan gave the world premiere of Afro-Cuban composer Leo Brouwer’s Solo Viola Sonata in 2020, and regularly performs new music by Ana Sokolovic, Jessie Montgomery and others. One of his recent projects has been Slow Beethoven, collaborating with Lara St. John, Miranda Cuckson and Jeffrey Zeigler, in a unique creation of a lush sonic landscape based on the world of Beethoven’s late string quartets.

He is also increasingly in demand as a conductor, serving on the conducting faculty of the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division as head of one of its orchestras.

Milan’s teachers include Jutta Puchhammer, Atar Arad, James Dunham, Nobuko Imai and Samuel Rhodes. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Rice University. Milan is a Larsen Strings Artist.

You may contact Milan HERE.