Curtis S. Long

Curt Long has served as President and CEO of the Rochester Philharmonic since September 1, 2017. He came to Rochester from the Alabama Symphony Orchestra where he spent nine years as President. His time in Alabama saw the ASO make its Carnegie Hall debut (at the 2012 Spring for Music Festival); release a limited-pressing recording of ASO commissioned works; engage Carlos Izcaray as its new Music Director; expand education programs both in greater Birmingham and in underserved rural communities throughout Alabama; and successfully present an inaugural Sound Edge Festival in February 2017.

Prior to moving to Birmingham, Curt Long held similar positions with the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra in Ohio for 14 years and with the Delaware Symphony Orchestra for two years. In Dayton, he collaborated with local arts and business leaders in the development of the visually stunning and acoustically superb Schuster Performing Arts Center. Long’s previous professional experience was in a very different field of entertainment--he spent five years working with a firm that managed Indy Car and Formula One automobile races.

A seasoned and respected orchestra manager, Curt Long has served as a grant panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as state and local arts grantmakers in Alabama, Ohio, and Michigan. Long has served as a consultant and mediator for orchestras across North America, and has been an invited speaker at the Annual Conference of the Regional Orchestra Players Association.

Curt Long graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in English from the University of Chicago, holds an MBA in not-for-profit management from the University of California, Berkeley, and is an alumnus of the League of American Orchestras’ Orchestra Management Fellowship program. A native of Los Angeles, Long played Horn as an amateur but chose a career in music management rather than performance.

Curt Long and his wife Elizabeth live in Brighton, New York with the youngest of their three children, Mary.