Nashville Symphony's Giancarlo Guerrero will set down his baton as the ensemble's full-time music director at the end of the 2024-25 season, concluding a 16-year run heading up the orchestra at the Schermerhorn. He will transition to music director laureate in the 2025-26 season and lead the orchestra part-time in 2026-27 as his successor transitions into the full-time role.
“I am incredibly proud of what we have built here in Nashville, how we've done it, and where we are,” Guerrero says in a press release sent out Thursday. “We have accomplished so much musically even while persevering through a number of crises, including a flood, a major financial crisis, and finally the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been a richly rewarding partnership.”
That partnership has led the Nashville Symphony to win six Grammy Awards, including the 2021 award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for its recording of Christopher Rouse’s Symphony No. 5. The symphony has also released 21 albums and commissioned many celebrated works during Guerrero’s tenure, including collaborations with Béla Fleck, Wayne Shorter, Ben Folds, Victor Wooten and a host of other musicians. In April, the symphony premiered Hannibal Lokumbe’s The Jonah People, an awe-inspiring opus that chronicles African American music through the languages of music, dance and theater.
“We owe Giancarlo Guerrero a debt of gratitude for his amazing work with the orchestra and his devotion to our city," says Nashville Symphony board chair Pamela Carter. "His passion and enthusiasm for sharing musical experiences with our audiences is unparalleled, and we are grateful that he is giving us the gift of additional time with us as we search for his successor.”
Guerrero, 54, became the director of the Nashville Symphony in 2009 after a stint at Oregon’s Eugene Symphony. The symphony says a committee of board members, musicians, administrative employees and volunteers will begin the search for his successor immediately.
Nashville Symphony president Alan D. Valentine teased that Guerrero’s final full-time season as music director in 2026 “will be a celebration of his greatest accomplishments, to remind us of all he has given us.” You don’t have to wait that long to see him at the Schermerhorn, though: During the ensemble’s 2023-24 season, Guerrero will conduct the orchestra on such well-loved compositions as Carmina Burana and George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue — the latter of which will celebrate its 100th anniversary during the season.
Don’t miss Guerrero conducting Mozart's Requiem this weekend. And stay tuned for the May 2024 performances of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 10. Guerrero is a known Mahler maniac, so expect to see a music director and an orchestra in flying form as they perform the massive composition.
