Conductor James Gaffigan thinks it’s time to take up the music of his homeland

When James Gaffigan returns to conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on May 31, it will be in an all-American program of works by Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin and Florence Price. 

He led a similar program with the CSO in fall 2023. But for years, the American-born Gaffigan used to shy away from leading music from his homeland. He feared being typecast as the American conductor who does American music. Now that he’s older (45), “I thought it would be fun to do,“ he said. ”It’s all music that I love.”

Titled “An American Suite,” after the work by Dvořák (which the Czech-born composer wrote while visiting the United States), the May 31 program opens with the Dvořák piece and is bracketed by two Bernstein favorites: Three Dance Episodes from On the Town and the overture to the opera Candide.

After a previous visit by the conductor to conduct Bernstein’s score to the film “On the Waterfront” (1954), Chicago Tribune critic John von Rhein wrote, “Gaffigan is a terrific advocate for Bernstein’s music, and he drew a reading both powerful and sensitive from the CSO.”

In a January 2025 interview with the San Francisco Classical Voice, Gaffigan said, "I’m at an age now where I like to share with the great orchestras in Europe the great American works. So [in March] I’m going to the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra — which is in my opinion one of the two best orchestras in the world, along with the Berlin Philharmonic — with the music of Antonín Dvořák, which was written in America, and Leonard Bernstein, the Serenade (After Plato’s Symposium) with [violinist] Janine Jansen, and George Gershwin’s An American in Paris. It’s exciting to bring that to them."

Gaffigan did stints in his 20s as a staff assistant in Cleveland and San Francisco, conducting youth concerts and pops concerts with little rehearsal time and covering for the scheduled conductor of the subscription concerts. “I would watch great conductors come in and be a success, or fail, or be mediocre,” he recalled. “I would watch how they used their rehearsal time, and how they communicated. If they’re talking down or lecturing, forget it. Nothing will happen.”

For years, he tried to avoid being typecast as the American conductor who does American music, but “now I thought it would be fun to do. It’s all music that I love.” — James Gaffigan

When he got a chance to be on the podium himself, he let the musicians help him. “They took me under their wing,” he said. “They would say things like, ‘You don’t need to subdivide that passage. Just get us started and we’ll be OK.’ People ask me who was my teacher, and I say the Cleveland Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony.”

As a more mature conductor, Gaffigan has found a niche in leading opera. “I love theaters — carpentry, lights, makeup, singers, chorus, orchestra,” he said. “And I love it because people don’t look at me. I get a chance to make singers sound and look good.”

A century ago, conductors often got their start in the opera house and then branched out into orchestra music, but “nowadays it’s backward,” he said. “No one would let me conduct opera. I had to make my debut with the Chicago Symphony before I got my first opera.”

He currently serves as music director of the Komische Oper Berlin and the opera company of Valencia, Spain. His work in America is limited to guest-conducting. Though he had squelched any talk of a U.S. music directorship — at least, for the time being — his name is being floated as a possible successor to Esa-Pekka Salonen in San Francisco. 

“To put it crudely, being a guest conductor is like having an affair,” he said. “You come in, you have a good time, you leave. Being a music director is like a marriage. You have to talk about things that aren’t so romantic and clean the weeds and get into the dirt. And you have to want to do that — cultivating audiences, meeting with donors, leading educational concerts.” (The norm is for an assistant conductor to lead educational concerts, but Gaffigan believes it should be a music director’s job, too.) 

But when he visits Chicago as a guest again, he is ready for a good time. “I love the city of Chicago,” he said. “Everything about it, the culture, the food, the restaurant scene. I’m excited to see the Chicago public again, and I have many friends in the orchestra.”

A version of this article was previously published on Experience CSO.