By Maggie Meegan | Reporter
When Giancarlo Guerrero graduated from the Baylor School of Music in 1991, he did not start his career in the professional music world. He had no idea that 34 years later he would be conducting the string players in the 2026 Super Bowl Halftime Show for Bad Bunny’s musical performance.
Guerrero is a six-time GRAMMY-award winning conductor and has worked with orchestras around the world. Born in Nicaragua, Guerrero studied percussion and conducting before getting his masters at Northwestern University.
Guerrero said performing in the halftime show was an excellent experience and is very honored he got to perform on such a big stage doing what he is passionate about.
“What a privilege,” Guerrero said. “From the perspective of adding this to my resume, it’s just another icing to the cake, honestly, because this was completely outside of what I normally do.”
Typically, when looking for a role in the halftime show, Guerrero imagined that there would be a long list of conductors applying to the position to conduct the string players at the Super Bowl. For Guerrero, there was no auctioning or applying for this position; it was serendipity.
“When I got the call a week before the show, there was a big degree of incredulity from my end,” Guerrero said. “I thought, ‘Hang on a second, NFL, Super Bowl, Bad Bunny — what does this have to do with classical music and my own conducting career,’”
Guerrero said when he got the call, he originally thought it was a friend or a colleague trying to pull a prank on him, asking him to be a performer in the halftime show. Once he realized it wasn’t a prank, but an actual opportunity calling his name, he knew he couldn’t pass it up.
“I mean, given that both my wife and my daughter are huge fans of Bad Bunny, if I’d said no, they would never forgive me,” Guerrero said.
Looking back at his college life, Guerrero, who always had a passion for music, had one piece of advice he would share with the Baylor version of himself and to the Baylor School of Music students now.
“All of the great people, great artists that I’ve met, that I’ve worked with, these people work very hard and continue to work very hard with great discipline,” Guerrero said. “Don’t lie to yourself, just keep at it. The greatest educator is rejection. When you deal with that, you get up, and you dust yourself off and you keep going.”
Current students in the School of Music might not have a goal of participating in the Super Bowl halftime post-graduation, but Guerrero has shown that the sky is the limit. O’ahu, Hawaii, junior Eric Nakamoto said it was incredible finding out Guerrero was a Baylor alumnus.
“I mean, honestly, that’s really cool considering I’m in the School of Music right now for my instrument,” Nakamoto said.
After the stardom of being in a Super Bowl halftime show, Guerrero returns to be the current director of the Sarasota Orchestra and the artistic director and principle conductor of the Grand Park Music Festival in Chicago. Guerrero said he is enjoying living out his dream career with a loving family and keeping his eyes open for any other life-changing opportunities.
