Guest conductor brings a passion for Mahler and new work to Sarasota Orchestra

Conductor Giancarlo Guerrero got to know a little about the Sarasota Orchestra when a group of people touring music centers around the country visited the Nashville Symphony’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center a few years ago.

Guerrero has been music director since 2008 of the Nashville Symphony, where Kenneth Schermerhorn had a long tenure from 1983 to 2005. The Sarasota contingent was studying buildings, locations, designs and acoustics as the orchestra prepares to build a new music center on Fruitville Road near I-75.

“Our CEO asked me to meet with them and I gave them a talk about the hall, how it revitalized the community and the orchestra and all these things. I remember feeling very impressed by the way they spoke about their orchestra and what they aspire to with the orchestra,” Guerrero said. Sarasota Orchestra also is in the midst of a search for a music director in the wake of the sudden death of Bramwell Tovey, who was hired in 2022 and died before he could officially start his job.

Guerrero said he had heard from conductor colleagues “that it was a very good ensemble musically, so when they asked if I would consider guest conducting, I was happy to agree.”

He said from the people he met in Nashville it was evident “something is truly happening in terms of the orchestra. I can see there is a great desire to take the orchestra to that next level of recognition and importance.”

Guerrero makes his Sarasota Orchestra debut leading the fourth Masterworks concert program of the season titled “Titans,” the name given to Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, which is part of a program that also includes the overture to Mozart’s opera “The Marriage of Figaro” and American composer Kevin Puts’ “Marimba Concerto” featuring guest artist Ji Su Jung on marimba.

In addition to his duties in Nashville, Guerrero has spent eight years as music director of the NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic in Poland, while keeping a busy schedule as a guest conductor with orchestras around the world. He also enjoys when he gets to work with a new group of musicians for the first time, as he will in Sarasota.

“I don’t know the orchestra, but I have heard good things about them,” he said. “Part of this is chemistry. You can have great orchestras and great conductors, but it has to have that chemistry that happens by accident almost. Right now I’m just coming in to make great music.”

And music is “all about joy and collaboration. That’s how things happen in my career,” he said. He enjoys returning to some cities to reconnect with musicians and visit favorite restaurants. “But it’s always about the music first.”

He said he has programmed numerous concerts with works by Kevin Puts, whom he describes as “one of the most important living composers. He’s one of the most important voices right now and in the future I hope we’ll have a chance to collaborate.”

The Metropolitan Opera recently produced the premiere of his operatic version of “The Hours.”

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The “Marimba Concerto” also gives Guerrero his first chance to work with Ji Su Jung. “As a former percussionist myself, I know she’s got quite a reputation,” Guerrero said.

He said he is always impressed and challenged each time he leads work by Mahler.

“During his lifetime, he was probably the most famous conductor in the late part of the 19th and early 20th century,” he said. “He was a summer composer. He composed when the opera houses were on breaks. That’s why we have very few pieces by him.”

Yet unlike more prolific composers like Beethoven, Mozart and Brahms, just about everything Mahler wrote is part of the standard classical repertoire. “At some point somewhere around the world, Mahler is being performed. Somehow his short repertoire has made it into the standard repertoire.”

He remains popular because “you can absolutely understand the emotional aspects of this music,” Guerrero said. “He was an expert of grief and frustration. He’s someone who lost eight siblings in infancy, and being the older brother he saw it happen. He had a daughter who died of scarlet fever. He was constantly changing jobs. He was such a perfectionist that institutions would get rid of him. He was a tyrant because of his standards.”

His music requires a “virtuoso orchestra to play it. There is a wonderful challenge that he places on wonderful musicians that makes it even more attractive,” he said.

'Titans'

Sarasota Orchestra Masterworks. 7:30 p.m. Jan. 26-27 and 2:30 p.m. Jan. 28, Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, 777 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Tickets are $35-$105. 941-953-3434; sarasotaorchestra.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Guest conductor leads Sarasota Orchestra in Mahler symphony