Northwestern alum Giancarlo Guerrero (Bienen MMus ’92) performed at the Super Bowl halftime show alongside Bad Bunny earlier this month. Along with being the artistic director and principal conductor of the Grant Park Music Festival, he now has a new title to add to his long list of accomplishments: halftime show conductor.
Guerrero has been involved in the music industry since he was a child. Growing up in Costa Rica, he started his journey in a youth orchestra and grew his passion as a percussionist. He started pursuing a career in conducting during his time at the University for his master’s.
The Daily spoke with Guerrero about his experience conducting the halftime show and his time at NU.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
The Daily: You’ve been in the music industry for quite some time. How did you get into music and conducting? How did your time at NU shape your musical path and journey?
Guerrero: For my master’s in conducting, I attended Northwestern and studied with Victor Yampolsky in the conducting department. My journey from percussion to conducting was really almost an accidental one, because I took the mandatory conducting class that all music makers have to take, and honestly, I was not very interested in it … but I had a wonderful teacher, and somebody that kind of saw a natural talent in me, and eventually he convinced me that I definitely should pursue this … little by little, percussion took a second backseat, and I became a full-time conductor.
I was immensely privileged that I was admitted to the Northwestern University School of Music, and specifically the conducting school — the fact that it’s a very prestigious program, and the fact that I got to study not only with Maestro Victor Yampolsky as my main teacher, but all of the rest of the faculty and people that really shaped me and inspired me to continue my career as a musician. I have to say also that a big part of it was living in Chicago, one of the great cities in the world for a classical musician — having the Chicago Symphony, the Lyric Opera and the Grant Park Music Festival. And now, being the artistic director and principal conductor, it’s coming completely full circle.
Every time that I come through, I always have to stop by campus and visit with people that have shaped my career, and since then, have become not only dear friends, but dear colleagues as well.
The Daily: Bad Bunny’s music isn’t conventionally the style of music that you would normally work with. What was it like trying to adapt your conducting style when working outside of a traditional classical setting?
Guerrero: I have been very fortunate to work with the likes of orchestras in Berlin, France, Chicago, New York or Boston. But honestly, I don’t think I ever had ‘halftime show with Bad Bunny’ in my bingo card. For my friends and family and people around me, when they saw me there, I don’t think they had it in their bingo card either, because it was quite a surprise.
The other thing that was really impressive, and made me respect Benito even more, not only as a performer, but as a great artist, is when I had a chance to speak with him. He told me that he wanted actual string players and an actual conductor. (He said,) “I have way too much respect for what you guys do and you have to be presenting the proper light. So, I’m not going to do this in a fake manner. I want the real thing.” And for that, I was really grateful for the fact that, obviously, for him, the most important part of it was the music.
The Daily: What do you personally think of Bad Bunny and his performance at the halftime show?
Guerrero: I loved it, honestly. I spent some time with him before and after the show and he really is a class act. He runs, I will tell you, an amazing organization. The best part that I will take with me for the rest of my life was the fact that we had over 1,000 people, all from every imaginable background that you can think of, and everybody coming together for one common purpose, which is bringing a great show, great music, to hundreds of millions of people, and to see how everybody comes together at such a degree of professionalism, a degree of generosity, a degree of joy.
The Daily: What did you think about the message that he was trying to send through his performance?
Guerrero: In the end, I go back to the whole idea that when we all come together, we can do anything that we want in reality. It’s a message that goes not only to communities, but it goes to the rest of the world. And God knows, we need that message now more than ever — the idea that if we work together for a common purpose, we can really do things. And as I said, everybody keeps (saying) this was a Hispanic, Latino, Spanish show. It was not.
I can tell you from my own personal experience that there were people from every background that you can think of involved in this show as part of it. And with every single stage, there was a different style of music. So this is a guy that is not just stuck in one type of music. He’s somebody that completely explores the many different genres that are available to him and is immensely talented for it.
The Daily: How do you think that art is powerful in spreading messages that differentiate it from other forms of communication?
Guerrero: The reach that something like this has in terms of how many people watch it is just remarkable. You’re targeting the hundreds of millions of people by the end of it. In the end, the message is secondary. The first thing that we were all focused on was the music making, putting the show together and doing the best that we could. And I can promise you, the person next to me took something different than I did, and that is what’s so beautiful. Music as a universal language has a way of bringing us together, and for all of us to come up with our own message that we think was told to us.
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