Other Media:

• Watch a short video of Giancarlo rehearsing.
• View a slide show of Guerrero in action.
• Listen to the opening of the 1812 Overture.

External Links:

• Eugene Symphony home page
• Giancarlo's biography

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• Giancarlo Guerrero is helping make magic every time he picks up the baton to lead the Eugene Symphony.
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A maestro makes magic

Young conductor Giancarlo Guerrero helps a small orchestra hit the high notes.

By Jackson Holtz

Tchaikovsky’s famous 1812 Overture is known for cannons and crescendos, but conductor Giancarlo Guerrero is more concerned about the first 113 seconds. The soft, opening measures feature the romantic, lyric sound of cello and bass. The music is warm, expectant. After leading the orchestra through the introduction five times, Guerrero deems the performance good enough for a paying audience.

“Don’t play, sing,” Guerrero shouts to the players. He means this metaphorically. Some music, he says, should be played as if the players were singing the notes so the music comes out more expressively.

	Giancarlo Guerrero, 35, is music director of the Eugene Symphony. Photo courtesy of the Eugene Symphony.

Guerrero too is expressive. The ebullient, barrel-chested 35-year-old music director of the Eugene Symphony is demanding and precise during a rehearsal for the second night of a midseason Tchaikovsky festival. He says he enjoys taking the score apart and working on the small details. At one moment, Guerrero chastises the second violins, demanding proper fingering and technique; the next moment, he encourages passion and emotion.

"I like the fire. I like the envy,” he says.

Guerrero’s meticulous approach, born from his dedication to the art, is paying off for the Eugene Symphony, now in its 39th season. Ticket sales are up and Guerrero’s programming of new music is attracting nationwide attention.

“I’m not exaggerating when I say we’re working with a dream conductor, a dream musician, a dream music director,” says Paul Winberg, the symphony’s executive director. “His passion for what he does really plays into that.”

Passion, emotion and energy exude from Guerrero on the podium and off. Although he’s only 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighs 205 pounds, he seems larger conducting, waving his arms, bouncing and moving from one side of the podium to the other. His emotions range widely. During performance he beams; during rehearsal he grimaces. He’s so passionate about the topic that he nearly knocks over a table at a small coffee shop in downtown Eugene while talking about a career in classical music.

"Everything I do is a reflection of who I am,” he says. “This is not a mask, this is not a show. This is who I am. Everything I do, I need to do. When I grab my heart in the middle of a performance, it’s because I really need to grab my heart.”

A Conductor is born

Born in Nicaragua to non-musician parents, Guerrero and his family moved to Costa Rica when he was 10. In the new country, Guerrero’s father recognized that his son could carry a tune and enrolled him in an after-school orchestra. Guerrero took up percussion because the line for that instrument's aptitude test was shorter than the line for violin. His instructors saw his talent, and by the time he was in high school, Guerrero played timpani, blocks, snare drum, triangle and cymbals with the Costa Rican National Symphony.

Photo by Jackson Holtz.

He attended Baylor University in Texas where he took a mandatory conducting class. A teacher saw Guerrero’s innate ability to lead and encouraged him to pursue conducting. The move from percussion to conductor took some getting used to.

“I was in the back of the orchestra making fun of the conductors,” Guerrero says.

But after attending a master’s program at Northwestern in Chicago in both percussion and conducting, Guerrero became more comfortable on the podium.

“All of a sudden I heard the orchestra like I never heard it before,” he says. “I got to tell you, that podium is the best seat in the house. I don’t care what anyone says… To have musicians watching you, your gestures, your physical gestures – there is something about that that’s just amazing.”

Although his first conducting job was leading a mariachi band back home in Costa Rica, he soon had his first position as music director with the Tachira Symphony in San Cristobal, Venezuela, 800 southwest miles of Caracas.

His break came when he landed an associate conductor position with the Minnesota Orchestra in Minneapolis. A few years later, he jumped at the chance to become music director in Eugene.

Eugene welcomes Giancarlo

	The Eugene Symphony performs in the Hult Center. Photo courtesy of the Eugene Symphony.

Eugene Weekly music critic Brett Campbell says Guerrero got the job, in part, because of his commitment to building the orchestra. Campbell says one way Guerrero is bringing the players and audience to a new level is by programming new music into the repertoire.

In the last two years, Guerrero directed West Coast premieres by John Adams, John Corigliano, Jennifer Higdon and Aaron Jay Kernis, a veritable who’s who in contemporary American music. This season the orchestra will premiere a piece by Phillip Rothman, and it has played pieces by Frank Martin and Alban Berg, all respected 20th century composers and departures from the standard repertory of Bach, Brahms and Beethoven.

“They are going to be the next Mozart,” Guerrero says of the composers he’s featured.