Giancarlo Guerrero

Giancarlo Guerrero is a six-time GRAMMY® Award–winning conductor whose imaginative programming and “curatorial and interpretive creativity” (Chicago Tribune) draw from 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).

In the 2025–26 season, Guerrero took on the role of Music Director of the Sarasota Orchestra, becoming the seventh conductor to hold the appointment since the orchestra’s founding in 1949. He also completed his first season as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago, prompting the Chicago Tribune to report, “if this season is a harbinger of things to come with Guerrero, Grant Park has hit the jackpot.”

Guerrero continues to serve as Music Director Laureate of 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 his direction, the Nashville Symphony commissioned and premiered nearly two dozen pieces – including works by Béla Fleck, Kip Winger, Ben Folds, Jennifer Higdon, Hannibal Lokumbe, and Terry Riley – and released twenty-four 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.

Guerrero opens his 2026–27 season with a return to the San Francisco Symphony, where he will conduct Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto featuring Hilary Hahn. He also appears as a guest conductor this season with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the symphonies of Oregon, Baltimore, and Indianapolis, with international engagements including Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Brussels Philharmonic, Frankfurt Museumsorchester, Sinfónica de Tenerife, and Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias.

In recent seasons, Guerrero has also performed with prominent North American orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, and those of Atlanta, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Montréal, Philadelphia, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver, and Houston. Internationally, he has worked with the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie in Saarbrücken, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, London Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Netherlands Philharmonic, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Romanian National Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo in Brazil, the New Zealand Symphony as well as Sydney Symphony and Queensland Symphony in Australia. He also counts among his career highlights conducting in Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX Halftime Show in 2026.

Guerrero also conducts concerts this season with the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic, where he recently completed a six-season tenure as Music Director. With that orchestra, he 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’s 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 Institute 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. More at www.giancarlo-guerrero.com.