Conductor James Gaffigan is a versatile figure with a repertory ranging from orchestral music to opera, from Mozart to Wolfgang Rihm. His career has entailed long-term posts with several prestigious European ensembles. A first-prize win at the Sir Georg Solti International Conductors' Competition in Germany in 2004 aided Gaffigan's career, which had already begun with his appointment as the assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra. Gaffigan began to find high-profile guest conducting engagements, including those with the New York Philharmonic and the Lucerne Symphony, where he made guest appearances in 2008 and 2009 before being hired as the chief conductor in 2010. In 2021, Gaffigan was named the principal guest conductor of the Trondheim Symphony. That year, Gaffigan and the Lucerne Symphony issued the album Americans: Bernstein, Barber, Crawford, Ives and backed violinist Vadim Gluzman on an album of concertos by Beethoven and Schnittke.