 Los Angeles Philharmonic executive director Ernest Fleischmann noted that Milenski established a benchmark for progressive programming and daring production that invigorated the entire Southern California performing arts community.Among his operatic legacies, Milenski stimulated the careers of stage directors Christopher Alden and Julian Webber, and he gave his daughter Isabel Milenski her directorial debut with Peri’s "Euridice" in a 2001 production at the Getty Museum commemorating the 400th anniversary of the “first” opera.Michael Milenski has been a proponent of composer Gian Carlo Menotti's opera The Saint Of Bleecker Street