Mahler Symphony No. 1

Program

Clarice Assad Baião N’ Blues (9 mins)

Pacho Flores Morocota (5 mins)

Arturo Márquez Concierto de Otoño (20 mins)

Son de luz
Balada de floripondios
Conga de flores

Intermission (20 mins)

Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 1, Titan (60 mins)

Langsam schleppend
Blumine
Kräftig bewegt
Feierlich und gemessen
Stürmisch bewegt

Grant Park Orchestra

Grant Park Orchestra

Orchestra

Grant Park Orchestra

Orchestra

The Grant Park Orchestra was formed in 1944 when the Chicago Park District assembled a single resident orchestra under the direction of Principal Conductor Nikolai Malko to perform at the Grant Park Music Festival (which began in 1935 and featured a series of visiting orchestras). Since then, other prestigious conductors have held the position, including Irwin Hoffman, Leonard Slatkin, David Zinman, Zdnek Macal and Hugh Wolff. In 2000, Carlos Kalmar was named the Festival’s Principal Conductor.
Today, the Grant Park Orchestra draws its musicians from different orchestras and musical institutions throughout the United States. Each summer, all of the orchestra members gather in Millennium Park for a ten-week long season consisting of intensive rehearsals and performances. During the year, the musicians can be found across the country performing with major orchestras, teaching at numerous universities and appearing frequently in concert stages across the country. Some organizations represented by Grant Park Orchestra musicians include the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, the Buffalo, Colorado, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Milwaukee, New Mexico, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Richmond, San Antonio, Seattle, and Utah Symphonies. The Grant Park Orchestra was nominated for a Grammy award for its recording entitled Robert Kurka: Symphonic Works.

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Giancarlo Guerrero

Giancarlo Guerrero

Conductor

Giancarlo Guerrero

Conductor

Six-time GRAMMY® Award-winning conductor Giancarlo Guerrero named artistic leader of Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival.
The internationally renowned conductor and longtime music director of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and music director designate of the Sarasota Orchestra becomes the Festival’s eighth artistic director and principal conductor. Guerrero led the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus in three acclaimed concerts during the 2024 season and has taken the reins of the Festival’s artistic team for the 2025 season. He will conduct four weeks next summer. The Festival has presented free classical concerts since 1935 and attracts hundreds of thousands each year.
“We are thrilled to welcome Giancarlo Guerrero to Chicago to lead what is regarded as the United States’ most important free classical music institution,” said Paul Winberg, Grant Park Orchestral Association President and CEO. “Giancarlo is not only a brilliant conductor with a stellar reputation; he has a history of curating programs that are exciting, surprising, and inventive. Also, our musicians are tremendously excited about working with him. His concerts last summer sparked a palpable energy from our audiences. It is a joy to listen to the music he conducts. The Grant Park Music Festival is highly anticipated by Chicagoans each year; we are confident that our future is in excellent hands with Giancarlo at the podium.”
Praised for his “viscerally powerful performances” (Boston Globe) and described as “at once vigorous, passionate, and nuanced” (BachTrack), Guerrero is one of the most respected orchestra conductors in the world. He succeeds Carlos Kalmar, who served in the position for 25 seasons, and will now hold the title of conductor laureate. Guerrero is familiar to Chicago audiences through his frequent appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In addition, he has led multiple programs with the Grant Park Music Festival since his 2008 debut.
“From the moment I first walked onto the stage of the glorious Pritzker Pavilion, and looked out at the sea of people – a snapshot of the entire city of Chicago – it was immediately apparent what a gift the Grant Park Music Festival is to the community. In the heart of this vibrant downtown, in one of the most exciting cities in the world, here is a festival dedicated to orchestral music and designed to be enjoyed by everyone. The mission of the Festival aligns closely with my philosophy that music is meant to be enjoyed by people from all walks of life, without boundaries,” said Guerrero. “I felt such a natural, easy connection with these incredible musicians – including both the stellar orchestra and the spectacular chorus. I recognized sparks flying, musically speaking, from my first interactions with them from the podium. These musicians, hailing from orchestras and opera companies from the region and throughout the world, are really the best of the best.”
During the 2024 Festival, Guerrero led two programs: the first featuring Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 on July 10, and the second featuring Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with Maurice Duruflé's Requiem on July 12 and 13. Reviewing the Shostakovich program for the Chicago Tribune, Hannah Edgar praised Guerrero’s “curatorial and interpretive creativity” and added that his pre-performance remarks to the audience “provided context for both pieces… that mirrored his interpretation of the symphony: emphatic, practiced and assertive.” Recognizing that he might be a candidate to replace Kalmar, Edgar concluded that “Guerrero will have no problem leaving his mark.”
Festival concertmaster Jeremy Black also lauded Guerrero’s leadership of the orchestra, saying, “Giancarlo established a genuine rapport with the orchestra. I remember hearing one of my orchestra colleagues say, ‘he lit a fire under us!’ He's a superb musician who can inspire us to perform at the highest level.”
“The Grant Park Music Festival drew hundreds of thousands of people during our recently concluded summer season,” added Grant Park Orchestral Association Board Chair Adam Grais. “Not only do our concerts attract dedicated music lovers and introduce thousands of young people to classical music, we also present some of the world’s most esteemed musicians to our stage. Concertgoers tell me that the Festival is one of the things they most love about Chicago. And Giancarlo possesses the talent, relationships, vision and drive to lead our organization to even greater accomplishments in the future.”
The board of directors of the Grant Park Orchestral Association enthusiastically voted unanimously at an August 15 meeting to name Guerrero as the successor to Kalmar, who had announced in 2021 that he was stepping down at the end of the Festival 2024. The search for Kalmar’s replacement was a three-year process undertaken by a search committee composed of musicians, members of the board of directors and community leaders. The Festival team will announce Guerrero’s plans for the 2025 season in January.
About Giancarlo Guerrero
In the 2024-2025 season, Guerrero will serve in his 16th and final year as music director of the Nashville Symphony. Guerrero collaborated with the Nashville Symphony to premiere over two dozen new works and release 22 commercial albums. These definitive recordings garnered 13 GRAMMY® Award nominations and six GRAMMY® wins, cementing Guerrero and the Symphony’s international reputation as standard-bearers for recordings of contemporary American music. As part of his commitment to fostering the work of contemporary composers, Guerrero, together with composer Aaron Jay Kernis, also guided the creation of Nashville Symphony’s biannual Composer Lab & Workshop for young and emerging composers.
Guerrero has collaborated throughout his career with leading ensembles in North America, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Philadelphia Orchestra, among others. Internationally, he has maintained longstanding relationships with esteemed orchestras in Europe, Latin America and Australia/New Zealand. Guerrero also recently completed a six-season tenure as music director of the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic in Poland. Guerrero previously held posts as the principal guest conductor of both the Cleveland Orchestra Miami Residency and the Gulbenkian Orchestra 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 University in Evanston, Illinois. 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, 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.

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Pacho Flores

Pacho Flores

Trumpet

Pacho Flores

Trumpet

Pacho Flores was awarded First Prize in the “Maurice André” International Contest, the most renowned trumpet Contest in the world, as well as First Prize in the “Philip Jones” International Contest and First Prize in the “Cittá di Porcia” International contest. Trained in the marvelous Orchestra System for Youth and Children in Venezuela, he received top recognition for his performances, recitals, and recordings as a soloist.
Capable of managing classical or popular styles indistinctively, Flores adds to his captivating interpretations a great deal of energy tinged with the most beautiful instrumental colors. Acting as soloist, he has performed with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Kiev, Camerata from St. Petesbourg, Orchestral Ensemble from Paris, Orchestre de la Garde Républicaine, NHK Orchestra from Japan, Symphony Orchestra of Tokio, Philharmonic Orchestra of Osaka, Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra from Venezuela, Symphony Orchestra of Dusseldorf, and the Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra amongst many others. He has also given recitals in concert halls such as the Carnegie Hall in New York, Pleyel Hall in Paris, and the Opera City in Tokio. Serving as one of the founding members of the Simón Bolívar Brass Quintet, he has taken part in numerous tours around Europe, South America, United States, and Japan. Experienced orchestral musician, Flores has held the Leading Trumpet position in the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, Saito Kinen Orchestra from Japan, and the Symphony Orchestra of Miami, under the musical direction of Maestros like Claudio Abbado, Sir Simon Rattle, Seiji Ozawa, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Rafael Frübeck of Burgos, Eduardo Marturet, and Gustavo Dudamel including many others. Founding Director of the Latin-American Trumpet Academy in Venezuela, he fosters a promising generation of young talents. Flores is extremely keen on promoting Contemporary Music and does so providing important contributions by means of the performance and interpretation of his instrument. His repertoire includes commissions and premieres of works by composers such as Roger Boutry, Efraín Oscher, Giancarlo Castro, Santiago Báez, Juan Carlos Nuñez, and Sergio Bernal. Recently he has carried out an important concert tour across Norway and Austria with the Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Maestro and Composer Christian Lindberg, interpreting his concert “Akbank Bunka”, a piece for Trumpet and Orchestra, making his debut at the Fiestpielhaus of Salzburg, and at the Musikverein of Viena. His first album “La Trompeta venezolana” was released by the record label Guataca Producciones.
Artist from the Stomvi family, he plays instruments that have been exclusively manufactured for him by this renowned firm, and is actively involved in the developments and innovations of his instruments. Pacho Flores is a Deutsche Grammophon exclusive artist with already three recordings, Cantar with Konzerthaus Orchester Berlin and Christian Vásquez; Entropía, Gold Medal of the Global Music Awards; Fractales with Arctic Philharmonic and Christian Lindberg; the double CD-DVD Cantos y Revueltas with Real Filharmonía de Galicia and Manuel Hernández-Silva; and Estirpe with Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería y Carlos Miguel Prieto, nominated and awarded at the Latin Grammys.

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Clarice Assad (b. 1978)
Baião N’ Blues (2023)
Scored for: two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four French horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings
Performance time: 9 minutes
First Grant Park Orchestra performance

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Clarice Assad is one of the most widely performed Brazilian concert music composers of her generation. No stranger to Chicago, she earned her bachelor’s from Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. She has since received numerous awards and honors, and her works have been commissioned, performed, and recorded by prominent artists and ensembles worldwide.

Assad was commissioned to write Baião N’ Blues by radio station KMFA, Classical 89.5 in Austin, Texas, for its 2023 Draylen Mason Composer-in-Residence initiative. The work celebrates the fusion of her Brazilian and American musical worlds, juxtaposing lively Brazilian rhythms with the soulfulness of American blues. Baião is a genre of music that originates from Northeastern Brazil. It is characterized by a syncopated duple-meter rhythm played by a bass drum called a zabumba, which is played with both a mallet and a stick to achieve low and high notes, respectively. It is often accompanied by keyboard accordion and triangle. Assad writes in her program note for the piece, “Throughout the orchestral journey, a sense of lightness and humor permeates the musical landscape, inviting the audience to engage in a spirited dialogue.” She continues, “Baião N’ Blues showcases the power of music to transcend cultural boundaries and connect people through the art of listening.”

Pacho Flores (b. 1981)
Morocota (2019)
Scored for: strings and solo trumpet
Performance time: 5 minutes
First Grant Park Orchestra performance

Trumpet virtuoso and composer Pacho Flores originally wrote Morocota for trumpet and guitar. The piece first appeared on his 2017 album Entropía, recorded with guitarist and cuatrista Jesús “Pingüino” González. Tonight’s performance features Pacho’s orchestral arrangement, which was later included on his 2022 album, Estirpe. In an interview with KPBS San Diego, Flores described the piece as follows: “Morocota is a waltz, and I dedicate it to my mother. The style for this piece is from my town, San Cristobal in los Andes in Venezuela.” The short, charming work reflects Flores’s passion for blending the folk and popular music traditions of his native Venezuela with classical forms. He cites his father as a guiding force in this approach: “My father told me when I was a child this sentence: ‘Pacho, the music doesn’t have borders.’ For him, the music is music. You can play Piazzola or Tchaikovsky, and you have to play with the most beautiful sound and dignity—every style.”

Arturo Márquez (b. 1950)
Concierto de Otoño (2018)
Scored for: two flutes including piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four French horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, strings, and solo trumpet
Performance time: 20 minutes
First Grant Park Orchestra performance

“The trumpet is the queen in the heart of Mexico,” said Mexican composer Arturo Márquez. “We find it in practically every form of popular musical expression; it is the Mexican cry of joy and of sorrow. It is also foundational in Latin American concert music, and my Concierto de Otoño is a compilation of all those feelings, colors, and consolations.”

Márquez, best known for Danzón No. 2, made popular worldwide by Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, wrote Concierto de Otoño for another Venezuelan musician and graduate of El Sistema, trumpeter Pacho Flores, heard here on this program. In an effort to expand the solo trumpet repertoire, Flores has spearheaded a series of commissions from leading composers. Written in 2018, Concierto de Otoño (Autumn Concerto) mixes Latin styles within the traditional structure of the classical concerto. In addition to the work’s technical demands, requiring mastery of both classical and popular styles, the soloist must play four different instruments across the concerto: a trumpet in C, flugelhorn, soprano cornet in F, and trumpet in D.

The first movement, “Son de luz,” presents a dramatic dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra in the form of an Afro-Cuban dance (the “son” here being a Cuban genre of music and dance). The second movement, “Balada de floripondios,” is a love song in tribute to “el amor brujo,” or “love, the magician.” The floripondio is both a flower that resembles the bell of a trumpet as well as a euphemism for an extravagant person or gesture, while “el amor brujo” could refer to a ballet by Spanish composer Manuel de Falla of that name. Drawing inspiration from the baroque Chaconne, the movement proceeds as a set of continuous variations on a theme. The brilliantly virtuosic finale, “Conga de flores,” offers up another Cuban dance and space for an improvised cadenza within classical rondo form.

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911)
Symphony No. 1 in D major, Titan (1884)
Scored for: four flutes including piccolo, four oboes including English Horn, four clarinets including bass clarinet, three bassoons including contrabassoon, seven French horns, four trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings
Performance time: 61 minutes
First Grant Park Orchestra performance: August 15, 1966; Irwin Hoffman, conductor

While on a walk with Sigmund Freud in 1910, Gustav Mahler shared an anecdote that reveals a lot about how his distinctive compositional style came to be. Mahler’s childhood was turbulent—his father abused his mother, and eight of his thirteen siblings died in infancy. One day, as his father was beating his mother, the six-year-old Mahler ran from the house, crashing headlong into an organ grinder playing a popular folksong. This stark juxtaposition of the tragic and the frivolous stuck with Mahler and came to characterize much of his music. Nowhere is that more apparent than in his Symphony No. 1.

The history of Mahler’s first symphony is long and complicated. Although he wrote most of the symphony in early 1888, it incorporates earlier musical material, most notably his 1884 song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer). For the symphony’s premiere in Budapest in 1889, Mahler titled the work “Symphonic Poem in Two Parts.” Given this label, the audience expected the work to be programmatic, that is, conveying some kind of story or image. However, Mahler did not provide them with a program or detailed descriptions of the movements. This decision contributed to the symphony’s overwhelmingly poor reception, as the audience struggled to follow Mahler’s idiosyncratic style and thought the work an offensive parody.

Mahler continued to revise the piece over the following decade. For the next performance in Hamburg in 1893, Mahler changed the title to “Titan: A Tone Poem in Symphonic Form” and, at his friends’ insistence, provided the audience with an extensive literary program. By 1900, he had backpedaled on this decision and rejected any program or title besides “Symphony in D,” saying that programs often misled audiences and were “anti-musical.” He had also cut an entire movement (“Blumine,” restored in this performance) and made other edits in orchestration as he gained more conducting experience.

Despite his later renunciation of programmatic readings, there are undeniable literary and artistic influences behind Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. For instance, the inscription “Titan” came not from Greek mythology but from a novel by one of Mahler’s favorite authors, Jean Paul. Other references include Dante Alighieri’s Inferno (the finale was once titled “Dall’inferno al paradiso”) and artist Moritz von Schwind’s The Hunter’s Funeral Procession. Depicting forest animals carrying a hunter’s coffin, this woodblock inspired the ironic funeral procession of the fourth movement.

The biggest clues to any underlying program come in the work’s extensive quotations from Songs of a Wayfarer. The main theme of the first movement derives from the second song of the cycle, “Ging heut’ Morgen über’s Feld” (“I Went this Morning over the Field”). In the song, the wayfarer marvels at the beauty of nature as it awakens from its winter slumber. But amid this splendor, he despairs: “Will my happiness really begin now? No! The kind I mean can never blossom in me!” This quotation sums up the symphony’s emotional trajectory: the spring of the first three movements gives way to the death of the protagonist’s illusions and finally his acceptance and spiritual triumph.

The first movement opens with a unison A across seven octaves in the strings. From this eerie stillness emerge distant fanfares, cuckoo calls and other nature sounds, and eventually the melody from Songs of a Wayfarer. The second movement, “Blumine,” which Mahler excised in 1896, has been reinstated for tonight’s performance. While some early critics denounced it as trivial, it provides a delicate palate-cleanser after the exuberant end of the first movement. Next, the scherzo alternates a rustic waltz with a more genteel Austrian Ländler in the trio section. This relatively straightforward scherzo was the only movement that found consistent favor among initial audiences.

The same cannot be said of the fourth movement, which casts the children’s round “Frère Jacques” as a grotesque funeral procession in minor, accompanied by Bohemian street musicians. In the middle of the movement comes another quote from Songs of a Wayfarer, specifically the final verse of the fourth song, “Die zwei blauen Augen von meinem Schatz” (“The Two Blue Eyes of my Beloved”). Here, the wayfarer finds solace from his lovesickness under a linden tree, concluding, “Everything was good again. Everything: love and grief, and world and dream!” Again, the poignancy of this music is set in stark contrast to what surrounds it. After a cymbal crash, the finale emerges like a lightning bolt from a dark cloud. The movement transforms musical material from the first movement in a turbulent journey toward D major.

—Katherine Buzard

Event Sponsors

This concert is graciously sponsored by David H. Whitney and Juliana Y. Chyu. Additional support for this program is generously provided as part of the Hanson Community Connections Series.

Giancarlo Guerrero

Giancarlo Guerrero

Conductor

Giancarlo Guerrero

Conductor

Six-time GRAMMY® Award-winning conductor Giancarlo Guerrero named artistic leader of Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival.
The internationally renowned conductor and longtime music director of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and music director designate of the Sarasota Orchestra becomes the Festival’s eighth artistic director and principal conductor. Guerrero led the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus in three acclaimed concerts during the 2024 season and has taken the reins of the Festival’s artistic team for the 2025 season. He will conduct four weeks next summer. The Festival has presented free classical concerts since 1935 and attracts hundreds of thousands each year.
“We are thrilled to welcome Giancarlo Guerrero to Chicago to lead what is regarded as the United States’ most important free classical music institution,” said Paul Winberg, Grant Park Orchestral Association President and CEO. “Giancarlo is not only a brilliant conductor with a stellar reputation; he has a history of curating programs that are exciting, surprising, and inventive. Also, our musicians are tremendously excited about working with him. His concerts last summer sparked a palpable energy from our audiences. It is a joy to listen to the music he conducts. The Grant Park Music Festival is highly anticipated by Chicagoans each year; we are confident that our future is in excellent hands with Giancarlo at the podium.”
Praised for his “viscerally powerful performances” (Boston Globe) and described as “at once vigorous, passionate, and nuanced” (BachTrack), Guerrero is one of the most respected orchestra conductors in the world. He succeeds Carlos Kalmar, who served in the position for 25 seasons, and will now hold the title of conductor laureate. Guerrero is familiar to Chicago audiences through his frequent appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In addition, he has led multiple programs with the Grant Park Music Festival since his 2008 debut.
“From the moment I first walked onto the stage of the glorious Pritzker Pavilion, and looked out at the sea of people – a snapshot of the entire city of Chicago – it was immediately apparent what a gift the Grant Park Music Festival is to the community. In the heart of this vibrant downtown, in one of the most exciting cities in the world, here is a festival dedicated to orchestral music and designed to be enjoyed by everyone. The mission of the Festival aligns closely with my philosophy that music is meant to be enjoyed by people from all walks of life, without boundaries,” said Guerrero. “I felt such a natural, easy connection with these incredible musicians – including both the stellar orchestra and the spectacular chorus. I recognized sparks flying, musically speaking, from my first interactions with them from the podium. These musicians, hailing from orchestras and opera companies from the region and throughout the world, are really the best of the best.”
During the 2024 Festival, Guerrero led two programs: the first featuring Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 on July 10, and the second featuring Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with Maurice Duruflé's Requiem on July 12 and 13. Reviewing the Shostakovich program for the Chicago Tribune, Hannah Edgar praised Guerrero’s “curatorial and interpretive creativity” and added that his pre-performance remarks to the audience “provided context for both pieces… that mirrored his interpretation of the symphony: emphatic, practiced and assertive.” Recognizing that he might be a candidate to replace Kalmar, Edgar concluded that “Guerrero will have no problem leaving his mark.”
Festival concertmaster Jeremy Black also lauded Guerrero’s leadership of the orchestra, saying, “Giancarlo established a genuine rapport with the orchestra. I remember hearing one of my orchestra colleagues say, ‘he lit a fire under us!’ He's a superb musician who can inspire us to perform at the highest level.”
“The Grant Park Music Festival drew hundreds of thousands of people during our recently concluded summer season,” added Grant Park Orchestral Association Board Chair Adam Grais. “Not only do our concerts attract dedicated music lovers and introduce thousands of young people to classical music, we also present some of the world’s most esteemed musicians to our stage. Concertgoers tell me that the Festival is one of the things they most love about Chicago. And Giancarlo possesses the talent, relationships, vision and drive to lead our organization to even greater accomplishments in the future.”
The board of directors of the Grant Park Orchestral Association enthusiastically voted unanimously at an August 15 meeting to name Guerrero as the successor to Kalmar, who had announced in 2021 that he was stepping down at the end of the Festival 2024. The search for Kalmar’s replacement was a three-year process undertaken by a search committee composed of musicians, members of the board of directors and community leaders. The Festival team will announce Guerrero’s plans for the 2025 season in January.
About Giancarlo Guerrero
In the 2024-2025 season, Guerrero will serve in his 16th and final year as music director of the Nashville Symphony. Guerrero collaborated with the Nashville Symphony to premiere over two dozen new works and release 22 commercial albums. These definitive recordings garnered 13 GRAMMY® Award nominations and six GRAMMY® wins, cementing Guerrero and the Symphony’s international reputation as standard-bearers for recordings of contemporary American music. As part of his commitment to fostering the work of contemporary composers, Guerrero, together with composer Aaron Jay Kernis, also guided the creation of Nashville Symphony’s biannual Composer Lab & Workshop for young and emerging composers.
Guerrero has collaborated throughout his career with leading ensembles in North America, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Philadelphia Orchestra, among others. Internationally, he has maintained longstanding relationships with esteemed orchestras in Europe, Latin America and Australia/New Zealand. Guerrero also recently completed a six-season tenure as music director of the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic in Poland. Guerrero previously held posts as the principal guest conductor of both the Cleveland Orchestra Miami Residency and the Gulbenkian Orchestra 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 University in Evanston, Illinois. 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, 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.

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Christopher Bell

Christopher Bell

Chorus Director

Christopher Bell

Chorus Director

Christopher Bell has served as Chorus Director of the Grant Park Chorus since 2002. Bell oversees a chorus of more than 100 singers, along with the Project Inclusion Vocal Fellows, a unique program designed to encourage singers under-represented in the field. Bell prepares all of the Festival’s choral programs, and conducts the orchestra and chorus for several concerts.
During his tenure, he and the chorus have been recipients of the coveted Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence given by Chorus America, as well as glowing reviews from both critics and audiences alike. In 2013, Bell won the Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Professional Choral Art.
In a career spanning thirty years thus far, Christopher has been chorusmaster of the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union (1987–1990), Chorus Master of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra Chorus (1989–2002) the Belfast Philharmonic Choir (2005–2011) the Edinburgh Festival Chorus (2007–2018) and the Washington Chorus (2017–2020).
Largely responsible for the formation of the National Youth Choir of Scotland (NYCOS) in 1996, he has been its Artistic Director ever since. The National Youth Choir of Scotland has toured to Sweden, Ireland, Chicago, Hungary, Germany and Central Europe, has won a prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Award, and performed at the BBC Proms and the Edinburgh International Festival to great acclaim. NYCOS organisation has expanded to has expanded over 25 years to include fifteen regional choirs, three national choirs and an extensive education and publishing arm.
Bell was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Music from the Royal Conservatoire in Scotland in 2012, in recognition of his contribution to performing arts in Scotland. In 2015, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Music from the University of Aberdeen.
Born in Belfast, Bell was educated at Edinburgh University and held his first post as Associate Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony. Since then, he has worked with many of the major orchestras in the UK and Ireland, including the Royal Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National, BBC Scottish Symphony, Ulster Orchestra, Scottish Chamber, City of London Sinfonia, London Concert, RTE National Symphony, RTE Concert and the Bournemouth Symphony. Between 2009 and 2017 he was Associate Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra. Recent orchestral performances have included San Francisco Symphony and the Orchestra of Opera North.
He is well-known for his work with young musicians. Before his current post with the National Youth Choir of Scotland, he was the founding conductor of the Ulster Youth Choir, director of the Total Aberdeen Youth Choir for six years, and director of the prestigious RSNO Junior Chorus for twenty four years.

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Jeremy Black, concertmaster

Trista Wong, acting assistant concertmaster

Zulfiya Bashirova

Jennifer Cappelli

Laura Park Chen†

Injoo Choi

Dima Dimitrova

Erica Hudson

Hyewon Kim*

Matthew Lehmann

Jayna Park

Rika Seko

Karen Sinclair

Bonnie Terry

Krzysztof Zimowski

Liba Shacht, principal

Laura Miller, assistant principal*

Ying Chai

Ran Cheng

Karl Davies

Likai He

Ann Lehmann

Cristina Muresan*

Kjersti Nostbakken

Irene Radetzky

Jeanine Wynton

Thomas Yang

Bing Jing Yu†

Terri Van Valkinburgh, principal

Yoshihiko Nakano, assistant principal

Elizabeth Breslin*

Beatrice Chen

Amy Hess

Christopher McKay†

Edwardo Rios†

Rebecca Swan

Chloé Thominet

Walter Haman, principal

Peter Szczepanek, assistant principal

Calum Cook

Larry Glazier

Steven Houser

Eric Kutz

Eran Meir

Colin Corner, principal

Peter Hatch, assistant principal

Andrew Anderson

Christian Luevano

Samuel Rocklin

Chunyang Wang

Chris White

Jennifer Lawson, acting principal

Jennifer Clippert†

Alyce Johnson, acting assistant principal

Alyce Johnson

Mitchell Kuhn, principal

Alex Liedtke

Anne Bach, assistant principal

Anne Bach

Dario Brignoli, principal

Trevor O’Riordan

Eric Hall, principal

Nicole Haywood Vera Tenorio, assistant principal

Juan De Gomar†

Patrick Walle, acting principal†

Stephanie Blaha, assistant principal*

Neil Kimel

Brett Hodge

Paul Clifton

David Gordon, principal

Mike Brozick, acting assistant principal

William Denton*

Rebecca Oliverio†

Daniel Cloutier, principal*

Jeremy Moeller, acting principal

Lee Rogers, acting assistant principal†

Alexander Mullins

Andrew Smith, principal

Daniel Karas, principal

Josh Jones, principal

Joel Cohen, assistant principal

Doug Waddell

Kayo Ishimaru-Fleisher, principal*

Christopher Guzman

Eliza Bangert, principal

Javier F. Torres-Delgado, violin

Maria Gabriela Mendez Martinez, violin

Joshua Thaver, viola

Manuel Papale, cello

Laura Lynch Anderson

Kristina Bachrach

Madalynn Baez

Megan E. Bell

Alyssa Bennett

Tamara Bodnar

Kylie Buckham

Anna Joy Buegel

Laura Bumgardner

Katherine Buzard

Bethany Clearfield

Nathalie Colas

Carolyne DalMonte

Megan Fletcher

Kaitlin Foley

Saira Frank

Julia Frodyma

Katherine Gray-Noon

Kimberly Gunderson

Alexandra Ioan

Alexandra Kassouf

Darlene Kelsey

Olivia Knutsen

Marybeth Kurnat

Katelyn Lee

Kyuyim Lee+

Rosalind Lee

Veronica Mak

Hannah Dixon McConnell

Marie McManama

Kathleen Monson

Susan Nelson

Evangeline Ng

Máire O'Brien

Alexandra Olsavsky

Laura Perkett

Angela Presutti Korbitz

Alexia Rivera

Veronica Samiec

Emily Sinclair

Molly Snodgrass

Tiana Sorenson

Christine Steyer

Sarah van der Ploeg*

Lydia Walsh-Rock

Sherry Watkins

Kyuyim Lee

Isabel Yang

Opal Clyburn-Miller

Matthew Dexter

Emily Amesquita

Melissa Arning

Christina Bernardoni

Angela Born

Bethany Brewer

Julie DeBoer

Leah Dexter

Katrina Dubbs

Stacy Eckert

Margaret Fox

Catarine Hancock

Ruth Ginelle Heald

Sophia Heinz

Miya Higashiyama

Carla Janzen

Amy Allyssa Johnson

Kathryn Kinjo Duncan

Amanda Koopman

Anna Laurenzo

Jeannette Lee

Thereza Lituma

Chelsea Lyons

Victoria Marshall

Jessica McCarthy

Quinn Middleman

Ella Peters

Sarah Ponder

Emily Price

Stephanie Schoenhofer

Suzanne A. Shields

Marissa Simmons

Cassidy Smith

Aidan Spencer

Alannah Spencer

Margaret Stoltz

Carolyn Sundlof Boudreau

Gabrielle Timofeeva López

Elizabeth Vaughan

Corinne Wallace-Crane

A.J. Wester

Debra Wilder

Isabel Yang+

Charles Anderson

Enrico Giuseppe Bellomo

Justin Berkowitz

Madison Bolt

Hoss Brock

Steven Caldicott Wilson

Opal Clyburn-Miller+

John J. Concepción

Micah Dingler

Jared V. Esguerra

Alec Fore

Ace Gangoso

Klaus Georg

Tejas Gururaja

Paul Hunter

Garrett Johannsen

William Johnson

James Judd

Tim Lambert

Tyler Lee

Stephen D. Noon

Marcos Ochoa

Brett Potts

Nicholas Pulikowski

Peder Reiff

Samuel Rosner

Matthew W. Schlesinger

Joe Shadday

Aaron Short

Brian Skoog

Michael St. Peter

Ryan Townsend Strand

Alan Taylor*

Sean J. Watland

Nate Widelitz

Walter Aldrich

Evan Bravos

Matthew Brennan

Michael Cavalieri

Ryan J. Cox

Ed Frazier Davis

Lifan Deng

Matthew Dexter+

Chris DiMarco

Christopher Filipowicz

Dimitri German

Dominic German

David Govertsen

Spencer Greene

Brian Hupp

Jan Jarvis

Jess Koehn

Eric Miranda

Ian Morris

Ian Murrell

John E. Orduña

Wilbur Pauley

Douglas Peters

Jackson Pierzina

Martin Lowen Poock

Ian Prichard

Dan Richardson

Stephen Richardson

Benjamin D. Rivera

Scott Uddenberg

Schyler Vargas

Vince Wallace

Aaron Wardell

Ronald Watkins

Jonathon Weller

Peter Wesoloski

Jonathan Wilson

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