By the time Héctor Guzmán steps down from his position as music director of the Plano Symphony Orchestra at the end of the 2026-2027 season, he will have led the ensemble for more than four decades. The first music director of the orchestra, Guzmán, has not only seen the growth that the organization has had over the nearly 50-year tenure, he’s facilitated it.
“It’s been a good ride, a good journey,” Guzmán says, seated in the Plano Symphony’s headquarters, a building the orchestra now owns — a far cry from its modest beginnings. “I will probably be involved with [PSO] for the rest of my life. I live five minutes from here. My kids grew up here. I now have two grandchildren, and they live pretty close.”
Music has been central to Guzmán’s life as long as he can remember. His father and grandfather were musicians, and his early life was surrounded by it. When Guzmán was 5 years old, his father moved the family to Mexico City, recognizing his music talent and enabling him to pursue formal music education.
Guzmán began playing piano at age 6. The organ once he was tall enough to reach the pedals. By 17, he was already conducting.
After studying at the Conservatory of Music in Mexico City, he moved to Texas to study under the musical idol, Anshel Brusilow, who was the director of orchestral studies at the University of North Texas at the time. He earned his degree in organ performance while working on his conducting skills at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under then-Conductor Emeritus Eduardo Mata.
When Brusilow accepted a teaching position at Southern Methodist University, Guzmán followed him, working on a master’s degree and seeking out opportunities to conduct.
It was then that Brusilow encouraged him to apply for a newly-created Plano Chamber Orchestra. And the deadline was that day.
After a long application process, Guzmán became the music director at only 26 years old.
“It was difficult, but I didn’t know it,” Guzmán says. “I made some mistakes along the way, but I’ve learned from them. It was a very exciting time in my life.”
Now, over 40 years later, he’s watched the city of Plano change and helped the orchestra grow along with it.
The Plano Chamber Orchestra had 35 musicians, a three-concert season and a small community to serve.
Today, the now-called Plano Symphony Orchestra has over 75 musicians, around 12 concerts per season and an audience beyond the nearly 300,000 people that call Plano home today.
“Plano has seen tremendous growth, and so has the Plano Symphony Orchestra. Our budget, the first year, was $1,500 a year. I didn’t get paid,” Guzmán says. “Nowadays, our budget is almost $3 million a year, which makes us a regional orchestra as far as the budget is concerned.”
While many things have changed for the orchestra, some problems have remained the same. Without a dedicated space, the orchestra has operated “like nomads.”
First, they played at Fellowship Bible Church North, then the Eismann Center and now the Plano ISD Robinson Fine Arts Center.
“The acoustics are fabulous, really wonderful, so when we moved from the Eismann to the Robinson, that really made a huge difference,” he says. “The sound is so good in there for the orchestra that we are now, after almost 40 years, beginning to have our own sound.”
Aside from the growth of the orchestra, Guzmán says that the educational programs are where PSO shines.
“It’s very encouraging to see the education aspect of our symphony grow and develop as it has for many years,” he says. “We have a very healthy education program. It’s the envy of many in our industry nationwide because it’s very involved.”
Last season, the orchestra played for almost 18,000 children across 12 concerts, with 40-45 minute concerts with small ensembles, themed storytelling elements, interactive and multimedia elements to provide hands-on education with the children, female-composer series and pop-up concerts at community events.
Perhaps Guzman’s favorite, he recalls, is the young artist competition. For the last 25 or so years, the orchestra has hosted a competition for children 18 and under, where three winners are declared and invited to perform with the full orchestra at a concert.
“We hope that these kids would not only play or become professional musicians, but also become our audience because they’ve been nurtured since very young,” Guzmán says. “We want to nurture not only future musicians, but future audiences because if we don’t we won’t survive.”
Recently at a local restaurant, Guzmán was approached by a man in scrubs. He asked if he was Maestro Guzmán and recalled how he’d been a winner of the youth competition decades ago. Now, he’s a heart surgeon, but he still attends the orchestra.
“He said, ‘Thank you for that because that helped me in my career.’ He introduced me to his kids and thanked me for the opportunity,” Guzmán says. “I felt like what I’ve done is worth it. That made it worth it. Forty years of sacrifice and you see somebody like that and you go, ‘You’ve done good.’”
In October, PSO is playing their first international concert at Guzmán’s alma mater, the Conservatory of Music in Mexico City. And the orchestra is working on their first professional recording.
He hopes the PSO will continue to grow to the level of the major orchestras in Dallas and Fort Worth. But whatever comes next, he’s confident the orchestra is in good hands.
“Our musicians are at home with the classics, but they enjoy playing the pops, Broadway, opera, ballet music, music for small places, music for kids. They enjoy everything, and that, I think, is quite unique,” he says. “So we’re very fortunate. They’re not only talented, but they’re also eager to play whatever music you put in front of them, and I think it’s a joy. Not every orchestra does that.”
Though he stil has several seasons to go, a successor to find and a lifetime of goals for the orchestra beyond that, it always comes back to the music for him.
“Great music survives no matter what. It survives wars. It survives pandemics. It survives tragedies. Because it touches the human heart like nothing else. The human soul. When you hear a symphony by Beethoven or Brahms or Bach written almost 300 years ago, it still does something to your brain and then to your heart.”
