Principal Conductor

What a year it has been! As the saying goes, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” And that's how The Santa Fe Symphony reacted to the pandemic. We took inspiration from the legendary story of Isaac Newton, who famously took refuge and enforced ‘socialdistancing’ during the Great Plague of London in 1665–1666 at his family estate near Cambridge, and came up during that time with no less than the invention of calculus, groundbreaking work on optics and the nature of light, and famously, the discovery of gravity. In this fashion, we at The Santa Fe Symphony have indeed discovered new ‘theories’ of music making, through our innovative and successful video series, which not only kept the music alive but also our musicians working and, most importantly, paid, and our audience engaged and entertained. Like Newton’s prism, which unveiled an until then unknown world of colors, our wonderful Symphony shone in a bright, new light.

One of the most versatile and respected musical artists of his generation—renowned as a conductor, violinist, violist, and concertmaster—Guillermo Figueroa is the Principal Conductor of The Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra & Chorus. He also serves as the Music Director of the Music in the Mountains Festival in Colorado, Music Director of the Lynn Philharmonia in Florida, and is the founder of the acclaimed Figueroa Music and Arts Project in Albuquerque. Additionally, he was the Music Director of the New Mexico Symphony and the Puerto Rico Symphony. With the latter, he performed to critical acclaim at Carnegie Hall in 2003, the Kennedy Center in 2004, and Spain in 2005.

He has appeared internationally with the Toronto Symphony, Iceland Symphony, the Baltic Philharmonic in Poland, Orquesta del Teatro Argentino in La Plata, Xalapa (Mexico), the Orquesta de Cordoba in Spain, and the Orquesta Sinfonica de Chile. In the US, he has appeared with the symphony orchestras of Detroit, New Jersey, Memphis, Phoenix, Colorado, Tucson, Fairfax, and San Jose, as well as with the Juilliard Orchestra, and the New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center.

GUILLERMO FIGUEROA

The Ann Neuberger Aceves Principal Conductor Podium

Learn more about Maestro Figueroa at santafesymphony.org/about/conductor/