{"id":14874,"date":"2024-10-01T13:24:44","date_gmt":"2024-10-01T17:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/?p=14874"},"modified":"2024-10-01T13:24:44","modified_gmt":"2024-10-01T17:24:44","slug":"guerrero-grant-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/guerrero-grant-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Giancarlo Guerrero Named Next Artistic Leader of Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

The board of directors of the Grant Park Orchestral Association, producers of the annual Grant Park Music Festival in Millennium Park, today announced that Giancarlo Guerrero has been named the Festival\u2019s Artistic Director and Principal Conductor<\/strong>. Guerrero, a six-time GRAMMY\u00ae Award-winning conductor, led the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus for three concerts during the 2024 season. He is currently completing a 16-year tenure as Music Director of the Nashville Symphony and is the Music Director Designate of Sarasota Orchestra<\/strong>. Guerrero will join the Festival effective immediately to program the concert schedule for the 10-week 2025 season in the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, and is slated to conduct for four weeks next summer. The Festival has presented free classical concerts since 1935, and attracts hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans and visitors each year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are thrilled to welcome Giancarlo Guerrero to Chicago to lead what is regarded as the United States\u2019 most important free classical music institution,\u201d said Paul Winberg, President and CEO of the Grant Park Orchestral Association. \u201cGiancarlo is not only a brilliant conductor with a stellar reputation; he has a history of curating programs that are exciting, surprising and inventive. It is also clear that our musicians are tremendously excited about working with him, and that his concerts last summer sparked 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Praised for his \u201cviscerally powerful performances\u201d (Boston Globe<\/em>) and described as \u201cat once vigorous, passionate, and nuanced\u201d (BachTrack<\/em>), Guerrero is one of the most respected orchestra conductors in the world, and will be the eighth person to lead the Festival. He succeeds Carlos Kalmar, who served in the position for 25 seasons, and will now hold the title of conductor laureate. Having made his Festival debut in 2008 and having conducted multiple concerts since, Guerrero is also familiar to Chicago audiences through his frequent guest-conducting appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the moment I first walked onto the stage of the glorious Pritzker Pavilion, and looked out at the sea of people \u2013 a snapshot of the entire city of Chicago \u2013 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,\u201d said Guerrero. \u201cI felt such a natural, easy connection with these incredible musicians \u2013 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

This summer, Guerrero stood at the podium to conduct two programs: the first featuring Shostakovich\u2019s \u201cSymphony No. 5\u201d on July 10, and the second featuring Beethoven\u2019s \u201cEmperor Concerto\u201d and Maurice Durufl\u00e9’s \u201cRequiem\u201d (performed by the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus) on July 12 and 13. Reviewing the Shostakovich program for the Chicago Tribune<\/em>, Hannah Edgar praised Guerrero\u2019s \u201ccuratorial and interpretive creativity\u201d and added that his pre-performance remarks to the audience \u201cprovided context for both pieces\u2026 that mirrored his interpretation of the symphony: emphatic, practiced and assertive.\u201d Recognizing that he might be a candidate to replace Kalmar, Edgar concluded that \u201cGuerrero will have no problem leaving his mark.\u201d<\/p>\n

Festival concertmaster Jeremy Black also lauded Guerrero\u2019s leadership of the orchestra, saying, \u201cit was clear Giancarlo established a genuine rapport with the orchestra, and his energy and vision for the music was palpable on stage. I remember that one of my orchestra colleagues remarked, \u2018he lit a fire under us!\u2019 The musicians in the orchestra and chorus immediately knew that we were working with a superb musician who can inspire us to perform at the highest level.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Grant Park Music Festival attracted hundreds of thousands of guests during our recently concluded summer season,\u201d added Adam Grais, Board Chair of the Grant Park Orchestral Association. \u201cNot only do our concerts attract dedicated music lovers and introduce thousands of young people to classical music, we also present some of the world\u2019s most esteemed musicians on the Pritzker Pavilion 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the full press release.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The board of directors of the Grant Park Orchestral Association, producers of the annual Grant Park Music Festival in Millennium Park, today announced that Giancarlo Guerrero has been named the Festival\u2019s Artistic Director and Principal Conductor. Guerrero, a six-time GRAMMY\u00ae Award-winning conductor, led the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus for three concerts during the 2024 … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4835,3613,4249,7349,4585,3686],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14874"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14874"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14877,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14874\/revisions\/14877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/14876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}