About
Giancarlo Guerrero
Giancarlo Guerrero is a six-time GRAMMY® Award-winning conductor whose imaginative programming and “curatorial and interpretive creativity” (Chicago Tribune) draw out of his orchestras “exceptionally powerful and enchanting performances” (BBC Music Magazine). His contagious enthusiasm on the podium has led critics to praise his “clear and exacting beat and a gift for shifting between ferocity and tenderness” (San Francisco Chronicle) and his style that is “at once vigorous, passionate, and nuanced” (BachTrack).
2025 marks Guerrero’s first season as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago. Guerrero also takes on the role of Music Director of Sarasota Orchestra in the 2025-26 season, becoming the seventh conductor to hold the appointment since the Orchestra’s founding in 1949.
Guerrero transitions this season to the position of Music Director Laureate with the Nashville Symphony after a sixteen-year tenure, during which he championed the works of prominent American composers through commissions, recordings, and world premieres. Under Guerrero’s direction, the Nashville Symphony commissioned and premiered nearly two dozen pieces – including works by Béla Fleck, Ben Folds, Jennifer Higdon, Hannibal Lokumbe, and Terry Riley – and released twenty-one commercial recordings, which have garnered thirteen GRAMMY® nominations and six GRAMMY® Awards across multiple categories. He also guided the creation of the Symphony’s biannual Composer Lab & Workshop alongside Aaron Jay Kernis.
In the 2025-26 season, Guerrero adds to his extensive discography with the Nashville Symphony with the release of Gabriela Lena Frank’s Conquest Requiem and a recording of concertos by Jennifer Higdon, Brad Warnaar, and Chick Corea, out in November and December 2025, respectively on Naxos American Classics. He also conducts the Symphony in three programs and a gala concert featuring Renée Fleming.
Guerrero’s guest appearances this season include engagements with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and the symphonies of Eugene and Grand Rapids, with international engagements including the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, and the Romanian National Orchestra in Bucharest, where he conducts a concert performance of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.
In recent seasons, Guerrero has been seen with prominent North American orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Boston Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, and those of Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Montréal, Philadelphia, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver, and Houston. Internationally, he has worked with the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie in Saarbrücken, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, London Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Netherlands Philharmonic, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Orquestra Sinfonica do Estado de São Paulo in Brazil, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra, and New Zealand Symphony as well as Sydney Symphony and Queensland Symphony in Australia.
Guerrero also conducts concerts with the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic this season, where he recently completed a six-season tenure as Music Director. With that orchestra, Guerrero made several recordings, including the Billboard chart-topping Bomsori: Violin on Stage on Deutsche Grammophon and albums of repertoire by Szymanowski, Brahms, Poulenc and Jongen.
Guerrero previously held posts as the Principal Guest Conductor of both The Cleveland Orchestra, Miami Residency and the Gulbenkian Symphony in Lisbon, Music Director of the Eugene Symphony, and Associate Conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra.
Born in Nicaragua, Guerrero immigrated during his childhood to Costa Rica, where he joined the local youth symphony. He studied percussion and conducting at Baylor University in Texas and earned his master’s degree in conducting at Northwestern. Given his beginnings in civic youth orchestras, Guerrero is particularly engaged with conducting training orchestras and has worked with the Curtis School of Music, Colburn School in Los Angeles, The Juilliard School, National Youth Orchestra (NYO2) and Yale Philharmonia, as well as with the Nashville Symphony’s Accelerando program, which provides an intensive music education to promising young students from diverse ethnic backgrounds.