Greensboro Symphony CEO Lisa Crawford retires after 27 years

The Greensboro Symphony Orchestra said Lisa Crawford will retire on Jan. 31, 2027, after 27 years leading the organization, but she will stay on until the board names her successor. Farewell performances are scheduled for Jan. 30 and 31, putting a formal end date on a transition that reaches beyond one executive chair.

Crawford’s departure matters because the symphony is not only a concert presenter. Its mission is to enrich the cultural life of Greensboro and surrounding areas through music and music education, and that work reaches deep into Guilford County and neighboring communities. The orchestra’s OrKIDStra program serves Head Start children in Guilford, Alamance, Davidson, Rockingham and Randolph counties, with its class component beginning in 2017 at Guilford Child Development’s Elm Street Center. Its elementary school concerts reach more than 18,000 students in Guilford, Rockingham, Randolph and Alamance counties, and school concert programs serve more than 36,000 students each year.

That outreach gives the next leader immediate stakes in family programming, school partnerships and future audience development. Crawford has guided the symphony through changes in performance venues and a long period of educational growth, helping shape how the organization connects with the Piedmont Triad outside the concert hall. A new president and CEO will inherit donor relationships, season planning and the challenge of keeping musicians, patrons and community partners aligned around the same vision.

The financial side is just as important. Public nonprofit data show the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra operates on roughly $2.8 million in annual revenue, a scale that makes executive turnover a fundraising issue as much as an artistic one. The symphony’s offices are at 200 N. Davie St. in downtown Greensboro, where its programming feeds into the city’s cultural economy and the broader network of arts organizations that depend on steady sponsorships, ticket sales and civic support.

The board’s next choice will determine whether the symphony maintains Crawford’s priorities or resets its strategy. The organization already showed how much weight it puts on leadership selection when it named Christopher Dragon music director for the 2024-2025 season after a comprehensive two-year search that included musicians, board members, staff, subscribers and audience members. With Charles Calkins serving as board chair for 2025-2026, the board now faces the same kind of consequential decision at the top of the organization.