Orchestra decides on Bram Tovey’s successor
OrchestrasThe Sarasota Orchestra has chosen Giancarlo Guerrero as its next music director from 2025, succeeding Bramwell Tovey, who died two years ago.
Guerrero, 55, from Nicaragua, is also music director in Nashville, Tennessee, where he has served for 14 years.
He recently ended two terms at the Wroclaw Philharmonic in Poland.
Homerun hire.
I find the choice of Giancarlo Guerrero to be the next music director of the Sarasota Orchestra to be a fairly predictable one, albeit a good choice overall. I wonder if Rune Bergmann might have been another highly competitive prospective candidate.
I believe that Peter Oundjian was the initial choice, but that he declined an offer because he is already music director of the Colorado Symphony, and has other commitments, including, I believe, at Yale University.
I would hope that Guerrero’s ongoing relationship with Naxos Records will continue now with the Sarasota Orchestra, and not disappear after his departure as music director of the Nashville Symphony after the 2024-2025 season.
A big step down for Gianni G.
In the “hierarchy’ of US orchestras I agree with your comment, but the odds of most US music directors of a top 70 (in terms of annual budget, based on the website Adaptistration) finding another music director position of equal status in the US are in the end exceedingly low, especially in the top 30 orchestras with the largest budgets (a lateral move).
Of course, Gustavo Dudamel and Yannick Nézet-Séguin are the recent exceptions to this sort of observation, but in the world of orchestral marketing and public relations, they are legitimately “superstars,” irrespectively of how consistently they can elicit compelling let alone inspired performances.
The annual budget of the Sarasota Orchestra circa 2019 was $10 million, while that of the Nashville Symphony was 27 million, with music director compensation being about $169,000 versus $511,000. Still, over $10 grand a month is not bad at all.
And I believe that over the last 10-15 years quite a few musicians from the Sarasota Orchestra have moved on to orchestras with much larger budgets.
Again, I would hope that Giancarlo Guerrero would be able to get Naxos Records to begin recording one commercial release per year with the Sarasota Orchestra.