“We always have to remember that music has the purpose of telling a story,” says Giancarlo Guerrero. On May 16, Guerrero will conduct the final concert of his first full season as the new music director of Sarasota Orchestra. Unfinished Business is part of Sarasota Orchestra’s Discoveries Series, where the conductor brings the music to life with stories and context, offering a deeper appreciation for works that have endured through time.  

“Composers write in real time, and it becomes a time capsule of the moment that they're living in,” Guerrero says. “I truly believe that the reason why this music is still with us 200, 300 years later is because those basic feelings, those basic issues of politics, diplomacy, or life altogether are the same. We may have better technology, but the basic experience of being alive is always the same—even the worries in some cases are the same.” 

Guerrero adds that, while audiences of course enjoy the melodies, there is something extra ingrained in the music that affects us more deeply, even if we’re not consciously aware of it. “By digesting and dissecting what went into the music behind-the-scenes, I think we make an even better connection to the past and put it into the context of the present,” he says. 

The “unfinished” theme of this final Discoveries concert of the season refers not only to the end-of-season farewell between Guerrero and Sarasota Orchestra, but also to the stories behind three pieces of music with abrupt endings. 

“Normally, when a piece is not finished, it’s because the composer died,” says Guerrero. This is not the case with Schubert’s Eighth Symphony — after all, he published a Ninth before his death. So why did Schubert’s Eighth remain unfinished? 

“Well, the reason is very simple. It seems to be the case that he forgot he started it,” Guerrero explains. “Experts agree that he started writing the symphony, completed two movements, and then another project came through to write a ballet.” Pieces of the Eighth were later discovered in the drawer of a friend’s house, 25 years after Schubert died. “[Historians] called it ‘the Unfinished,’ but that’s not the title,” Guerrero says. “That’s how we know it.” 

The concert also includes a short piece by African American composer Julia Perry, whose work feels unfinished in a different way: the world of music lost a great deal of potential when Perry’s life and career were cut short at age 55 — on top of that, her career was hampered by the fact that she was Black and a woman composing this work in the 1950s. When Guerrero discovered Perry’s Short Piece for Orchestra, he felt struck by its voice, calling it “an original piece, unlike anything I had ever heard.” He describes it as impressionistic, like a musical Monet painting, “where she has the orchestra bringing out all the different colors.” 

Finally, Guerrero conducts Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony, written during a prince’s summer retreat that ran too long. When the prince refused to end his summer fun, Haydn penned a not-so-subtle message that the orchestra was ready to depart. “At the end of the symphony, [Haydn] specifically asked, at individual moments, for players to get up and leave,” Guerrero explains. What Haydn didn’t script is how the conductor is to depart. Guerrero said he has his own surprise ending for the Farewell Symphony.   

Don’t let this concert become your own Unfinished Business — catch this one-night-only Discoveries program at 7:30 pm on Saturday, May 16, at the Sarasota Opera House.

To learn more and purchase tickets, visit Sarasota Orchestra’s website or call the Box Office at 941-953-3434. All programs and featured artists are subject to change.