Manuel Barrueco, Jose Staneck, OSESP Ensemble, Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra & Giancarlo Guerrero
Biography Manuel Barrueco, Jose Staneck, OSESP Ensemble, Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra & Giancarlo Guerrero
Giancarlo Guerrero
is a six-time GRAMMY® Award-winning conductor now in his eleventh season as Music Director of the Nashville Symphony. Guerrero is also Music Director of the Wrocław Philharmonic at the National Forum of Music in Poland and Principal Guest Conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, Portugal. Guerrero has been praised for his “charismatic conducting and attention to detail” (Seattle Times) in “viscerally powerful performances” (Boston Globe) that are “at once vigorous, passionate, and nuanced” (BachTrack).
Through commissions, recordings, and world premieres, Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony have championed the works of American composers who are defining today’s musical landscape, making Nashville a destination for contemporary orchestral music. Guerrero has presented eleven world-premieres with the Nashville Symphony, including the GRAMMY-winning performance of Michael Daugherty’s Tales of Hemingway and Terry Riley’s Palmian Chord Ryddle.
Guerrero’s rich discography with the Nashville Symphony numbers seventeen, including the 2019 Naxos release of world premiere recordings of works by Jonathan Leshnoff, with the composer’s Symphony No. 4 “Heichalos.” The symphony was commissioned by the Nashville Symphony for the Violins of Hope, a collection of restored instruments that survived the Holocaust. This recording marks the first time the instruments have been heard on a commercially available album.
In a glowing review of Guerrero’s recording of John Harbison’s Requiem with the Nashville Symphony and Chorus released in 2018, MusicWeb International declared, “Giancarlo Guerrero brings out not just the drama but also the many subtleties in the score.” Other albums have been dedicated to the music of composers as diverse as Jennifer Higdon, Richard Danielpour, Joan Tower and Béla Fleck.
During the 2019/2020 season, Naxos will release recordings of Aaron Jay Kernis’ Symphony No. 4 and Christopher Rouse’s Concerto for Orchestra, both recorded with the Nashville Symphony at Schermerhorn Symphony Center. As part of his commitment to fostering contemporary music, Guerrero, together with composer Aaron Jay Kernis, guided the creation of Nashville Symphony’s biannual Composer Lab & Workshop for young and emerging composers.
Guerrero enjoys relationships with orchestras around the world. His 2019/20 season will include return engagements with the Boston Symphony, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Bamberg Symphony, Frankfurt Opera and Museums Orchestra and the New Zealand Symphony. In January 2020, Guerrero will conduct the Wrocław Philharmonic on a twelve-city North American tour.
Maestro Guerrero has appeared with prominent North American orchestras, including those of Baltimore, Cincinnati, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Montréal, Philadelphia, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver, and the National Symphony Orchestra. He has developed a strong international guest-conducting profile and has worked in recent seasons with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Brussels Philharmonic, Deutsches Radio Philharmonie, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Netherlands Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest, NDR in Hannover, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as the Queensland Symphony and Sydney Symphony in Australia. Guerrero was honored as the keynote speaker at the 2019 League of American Orchestras conference, where his address on transforming “inspiration and innovation into meaningful action” was met with a unified standing ovation.
Guerrero made his debut with Houston Grand Opera in 2015 conducting Puccini's Madama Butterfly. Early in his career, he worked regularly with the Costa Rican Lyric Opera and has conducted new productions of Carmen, La Bohème, and Rigoletto. In 2008 he gave the Australian premiere of Osvaldo Golijov's one-act opera Ainadamar at the Adelaide Festival.
Guerrero previously held posts as the Principal Guest Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra Miami (2011-2016), Music Director of the Eugene Symphony (2002-2009), and Associate Conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra (1999-2004).
Born in Nicaragua, Guerrero immigrated during his childhood to Costa Rica, where he joined the local youth symphony. As a promising young student, he came to the United States to study percussion and conducting at Baylor University in Texas; he earned his master’s degree in conducting at Northwestern, where he studied with Victor Yampolsky. Given his beginnings in civic youth orchestras, Guerrero is particularly engaged with conducting training orchestras and has worked with the Curtis School of Music, Colburn School in Los Angeles, and Yale Philharmonia, as well as with the Nashville Symphony’s Accelerando program, which provides an intensive music education to promising young students from diverse ethnic backgrounds. In recent years, he has also developed a relationship with the National Youth Orchestra (NYO2) in New York, created and operated by the Weill Institute of Music at Carnegie Hall.
The São Paulo Symphony Orchestra
Since it’s first concert, in 1954, the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra — Osesp — has built a very successful path, until becoming the institution it is nowadays. Internationally renowned for its excellence, the orchestra is a major force in the cultural life of both the state of São Paulo and Brazil as a whole, promoting deep cultural and social changes.
During it’s early years, it was directed by conductor Souza Lima and by the italian Bruno Roccella, followed later by Eleazar de Carvalho (1912-96), who directed the orchestra for 24 years and developed intense activities. In the last years under his wings, the group went through a period of financial deprivation. However, before his passing, Eleazar left a reformulation project for Osesp. Thanks to the efforts of governor Mário Covas, the choice of the conductor who would lead this new phase in the history of the orchestra was made.
In 1997, maestro John Neschling took over Osesp’s artistic direction and, with conductor Roberto Minczuk as his assistant artistic director, redefined and expanded the ideas left by Eleazar. Soon after, Osesp opened auditions in Brazil and abroad, raised the salaries and improved the work condition of its musicians.
Sala São Paulo was opened in 1999 and, in the following years, Symphonic, Chamber, Youth and Children’s Choirs were created, along with the Center for Musical Documentation, the Educational Programs, the “Criadores do Brasil” (Creators from Brazil) publishing office and the Music Academy.
Its seasons became famous for the diversity of repertoire, and partnerships with labels BIS (Sweden) and Biscoito Fino (Rio de Janeiro) ensured the diffusion of Brazilian concert music. The creation of Osesp Foundation, in 2005, represents a milestone in the orchestra’s history.
With former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso ahead of the Administration Council, the Foundation puts into practice new management standards that became benchmarks in the brazilian cultural environment.
Besides tours in Latin America (2000, 2005, 2007), United States (2002, 2006, 2009), Europe (2003, 2007, 2010, 2012, 2013) and Brazil (2004, 2008, 2011), the group maintains, since 2008, the “Osesp Itinerante” (Travelling Osesp) project, touring through the countryside of the state of São Paulo, performing concerts and running workshops and musical appreciation courses for more than 70 thousand people.
Nominated in 2008 by Gramophone magazine as one of the world’s three emerging orchestras to look for, and more recently (2012) featured in publications such as The Times and Gramophone, Osesp opened the 2010 season with Arthur Nestrovski’s appointment as artistic director and (french conductor) Yan Pascal Tortelier as principal conductor.
In February 2011, the Osesp Foundation Council announced north-american Marin Alsop as new principal conductor for a starting period of five years, beginning in 2012. Yan Pascal Tortelier continued to work with Osesp as guest conductor during 2012 and 2013 seasons. Also in 2012, Celso Antunes became the orchestra’s associate conductor.
In the same year, after concerts for the BBC Proms, in London, and in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Osesp was pointed out by critics abroad as one of the leading orchestras in the international scenario. It also released the first records through Naxos record label, part of a project devoted to release Prokofiev’s complete symphonies, conducted by Marin Alsop, and Villa-Lobos complete symphonies, conducted by Isaac Karabtchevsky.
In 2013, Marin Alsop was named Osesp’s musical director and the orchestra went on another european tour, performing for the first time — with great success — at Salle Pleyel, in Paris, at the Royal Festival Hall, in London, and at the Philharmonie, in Berlin.
