Meet Giancarlo Guerrero: Sarasota Orchestra’s New Music Director Brings Global Experience and Lots of Passion as He Takes SO into the Future.

By Joanna Fox | Photo by Dokk Savage Photography | November 2024

Dorothy said it best in The Wizard of Oz, “There’s no place like home.” But where do you call home when you are a ‘citizen of the world’, when you speak six languages – seven counting the language of music? And where do you call home when you are a 76-member orchestra with no dedicated space in which to rehearse, create, and perform?

When you are Giancarlo Guerrero and Sarasota Orchestra, you come together and build that home. A home for community, concerts, and conductors. A home where not only the musicians play their instruments, but where the music hall is an instrument itself. A home that honors the past as it embraces the future.

The past includes an 11-year-old boy, Giancarlo Guerrero, in Costa Rica who was enrolled in a youth orchestra program to ‘keep him busy and out of trouble.’  He said peer pressure kept him focused on practicing so he would be able to return to the orchestra with his friends each year. Little by little what began as a hobby became his passion, a passion that has taken him around the world and finally here to Sarasota.

That passion has fueled his involvement with youth orchestras over the years and Sarasota Orchestra has “one of the most impressive youth orchestras that I have ever encountered,” said Giancarlo.  “Music education has been a pillar of the Sarasota Orchestra institution reaching as many students as possible all over the area.”  Giancarlo acknowledged that not every student involved in the youth program will become a professional musician, but they will become the music lovers and concert goers of tomorrow. Music stays with you so much so that Giancarlo went from “being in the back of the band with two sticks playing drums to the front of the orchestra with one stick.”

                  Giancarlo Guerrero brings with him experiences and podium time of 30 years conducting with orchestras globally: New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Nashville Symphony, orchestras in Germany, Poland, and others in Europe, Latin America, and Australia. He is a six-time GRAMMY®award winner. His musical interests are varied.  “I do like all types of music from heavy metal rock to salsa and jazz music. In the past I have collaborated with artists from many different genres like Bela Fleck, Ben Folds, Victor Wooten and Esperanza Spalding,” said Guerrero.

This internationally respected orchestra leader will serve as Sarasota Orchestra’s seventh Music Director taking the orchestra into the future playing an integral role in many aspects of the new Music Center. Guerrero’s energy and passion are palpable and will reach a wide range of Sarasota Orchestra audiences beyond the podium.

                  Guerrero will complete his final year of his 16-year tenure as the music director of the Nashville Symphony while serving as Sarasota Orchestra’s music director designate,  as well as continuing to guest conduct internationally.

Giancarlo is intimately familiar with the great American composers. He has broken the strings that have bound the classical music world to change with the times. When Mozart, Beethoven, and the centuries old composers were new on the scene, they needed to be championed, and Guerrero has the works of many new composers that he champions in his portfolio. “I am always looking for young composers with the potential for a big career and I try to find joint projects to put them and their music on the map.” It is a way to keep the art form alive and relevant. And where better to perform new music than in a new hall?

As with all art, the process is integral to the product when it comes to Sarasota Orchestra’s vision for a Music Center. Conversations have been held throughout the community involving other arts organizations in Sarasota and Manatee counties. This Music Center would not be for just the orchestra; it will be a welcoming space for the community, impacting the culture, the language and the personality of the community and establishing a new rhythm for our time.

Location is paramount. When asked about the location on Fruitville Road near the interstate, Joseph McKenna, President and CEO of Sarasota Orchestra, said, “When Carnegie Hall opened, it was way up town and some people thought it might be too far away. Now it’s in the center of Manhattan. Our new location is the geographical center of what is becoming the region.” The Music Center will create a sense of place that will be a home specifically for the orchestra and will serve the arts needs of the community.

Sarasota Orchestra has been nomadic playing in five different venues over the years. The new Music Center will establish a home that reflects the orchestra and gives the organization an expanded “freedom of expression” (McKenna) that it does not have now. This concert hall will be one of only four acoustic music halls in Florida and the only one on the west coast of Florida. It will offer acoustic precision—imagine how the concert experience will change for both the musicians and the audience. When the musicians can hear each other better, they listen better, they contribute differently, pushing each other to the next level which in turns heightens the listening experience for the audience. In the new concert hall, the orchestra, under Guerrero’s direction, will further their own style, their own sound, their own musical identity. This space, this home, will showcase the virtuosity of Sarasota Orchestra.

Guerrero is quick to point out that the “each concert is a shared singular experience. No two people in the hall experience the concert in the way. Who we are and what we bring to the concert in the form of memories, expectations, and even what happened that day determines our experience.” It is his job to “lead and inspire the musicians in such a way as to create a limited sense of separation, a full immersion with the music with each member of the audience.”

Sarasota Orchestra is here for the whole community. There is something for everyone. The language of sound can be understood universally. Last season, the orchestra hosted 58,000 ticket buyers. The magic, passion, and energy of Maestro Giancarlo Guerrero will be sure to bring more listeners to the orchestra.

For more information and tickets to Sarasota Orchestra’s 24/25 concert season, visit SarasotaOrchestra.org.