Giancarlo Guerrero (Photo courtesy Sarasota Orchestra/Matthew Holler)
Giancarlo Guerrero’s joy – for his art, for his new role, for the city of Chicago – is irrepressible.
The six-time Grammy winning conductor acknowledges that his path to the podium might not be typical. With a good-natured, sardonic smile, Guerrero explains, “I come from Costa Rica and Nicaragua. You know, those two meccas of classical music!?”
Guerrero’s passion for the art form can be traced back to his youth orchestra days…and WFMT. In Costa Rica, he and his fellow musicians would carefully calibrate a shortwave radio to hear the WFMT-distributed Chicago Symphony Orchestra broadcast series. “This can move you regardless of where you come from.”
In the years since those Costa Rican listening parties, Guerrero has spent time in the Chicago area as a graduate student at Northwestern University, and in recent years leading the Chicago Symphony and Grant Park Orchestras. In October 2024, the Grant Park Music Festival appointed him Artistic Director and Principal Conductor.
He takes the helm at the festival this summer. And from the podium of the striking Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, Guerrero wants to inspire audiences of all stripes in the same way that music moved him in his youth. In between rehearsals, Maestro Guerrero spoke to WFMT ahead of his first season at the reins of the festival. Hear the season premiere live on WFMT beginning Wednesday, June 11 at 6:30 pm on 98.7FM, the WFMT app, and wfmt.com.
WFMT: Tell us about the importance of Chicago and the Grant Park Music Festival.
Giancarlo Guerrero: Chicago is one of the great cultural centers in the country. Period. Not just in terms of classical music, but overall. The size of the city allows you to find anything that you want. In the third-largest city in the country, the possibilities are truly endless.
The word unique is used a lot, but find me another festival like this one that is open, free to the public, and goes back 100 years! Even our rehearsals – you can go and watch conductors and soloists do what they do every day, just because we happen to be in a public park.
Continuing to expand the reach of the Grant Park Music Festival, I have to say, is priority number one. We are nothing without our audiences; we are nothing without our supporters. A big part of every single one of my visits is going out into the community and reminding everyone that this very special event is taking place for ten weeks out of the summer. That they should check it out because it’s there for the enjoyment and enrichment of the community.
One big part of my job, I believe, is challenging audiences as well. You cannot come to just hear the classics. That isn’t going to work in a city as wide and diverse as Chicago. Summer by summer, the city is changing and evolving. And for us to stay the same would be a huge crime! So, we must get creative and provide unique experiences to support new voices and compositions.
WFMT: What are you most looking forward to in your first season leading this festival?
Guerrero: I am most looking forward to connecting with the players. Last year I was here for just a week for a couple of programs: one with the orchestra alone and one with the choir. They were really special, and immediately we felt there was a spark, and that led to my appointment as artistic director. We’re all looking forward to when we get to make music together in one of the most incredible venues in the country.
WFMT: Joshua Bell was recently announced for a one-night-only concert with the orchestra. What do you think his appearance brings to the season?
Guerrero: The fact that we’re going to be making music with one of the great violinists in the world is a joy. And Josh isn’t the only one. If you look at the rest of the season, we have very recognizable names throughout. Now that I am artistic director, I get to find excuses to make music with these amazing colleagues. They inspire not only our orchestra, but our audiences.
Joshua Bell (Photo: Phillip Knott)
I want to present as many musical languages as possible. And I’m not always the right person for it – there’s repertoire that may not speak to me – and that’s why we have guest conductors! It speaks highly of the festival that these incredible artists also want to be a part of it. I’m enormously proud to continue with that tradition.
WFMT: How does this festival bring communities together?
Guerrero: When you attend a performance, anything can happen. Concerts are shared events, whether they take place in a concert hall or out on a lawn surrounded by thousands of people. Chicago is one of the largest cities in the world, and it comes with a lot of noise. You cannot recreate that anywhere. Nothing matches live performance – there’s something in the moment that will never be recreated.
If you want to hear the music played the same way over and over again, listen to recordings! I love my recordings, but at a live performance, there is adventure. You don’t know where it’s going to go! You may know the piece, but you don’t know how it’s going to be played that night. And everybody’s hearing it through their own experience.
WFMT: The live performances reach an even broader audience through the series of WFMT broadcasts from the Pritzker Pavilion. Talk about what this platform means to you as a musician, and why you have such a strong connection to WFMT and Chicago.
Guerrero: In the early ’80s in Costa Rica when we were listening to WFMT on shortwave radio, it had to be a clear night, no clouds, for us to be able to hear it. Now, it’s not just that you look out at all these thousands of people listening on the lawn, but you know that beyond that, there are people – God knows where – maybe another group of youth orchestra kids, sitting around in Costa Rica or in the Amazon, and they’re being inspired. Nowadays, these performances are available to anyone, literally. The fact that we can reach even more people through our broadcasts never escapes me. That is very special.
The Grant Park Music Festival (Photo: Norman Timonera)
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
