A Chat with the Columbus Symphony’s New CEO on its Concert Hall Plans and the Future

Over the last year, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra has been embarking on two parallel searches: a search for money to build its planned $275 million concert hall, and a search for a new leader who would, in part, spearhead the project.  

One of those searches reached a conclusion this summer when the orchestra hired its new CEO, Maureen O’Brien. The 43-year-old native of Lansing, Michigan, most recently served as the executive vice president for institutional advancement of the New World Symphony in Miami, a role that incorporated fundraising, communications and marketing.  

“We wanted to attract a candidate who was perhaps from a larger organization but wasn’t in the CEO chair and wanted to get to the CEO chair,” says orchestra board chair Stephen Markovich. Such candidates, he said, can have “bigger dreams, bigger aspirations.”

Who is Maureen O’Brien, Columbus Symphony Orchestra’s new CEO?

O’Brien replaces former executive director Denise Rehg, who in March 2024 announced her intention to retire, a month after the orchestra’s proposed concert hall plans became public knowledge. Markovich acknowledges that the leadership void may have worked to dampen fundraising for the concert hall project, which calls for a combination of private giving and public money to build an orchestra-tailored facility on the Scioto River. If such a space is built, the orchestra would depart its historic home of the Ohio Theatre.  

“When the donor community sees that there’s going to be a leadership change, there’s probably a little hesitancy out there,” Markovich says. “Now that we’ve got our definitive leader, we can reengage that community.”  

O’Brien, whose accomplishments at New World Symphony include overseeing a capital campaign that totaled $150 million, says she welcomes the challenge. “Halls are not built every day, and it’s a huge undertaking,” O’Brien says. “There’s such opportunity to get it right, and we have to make sure we’re having all the conversations we need to have.”

The new orchestra leader comes by her enthusiasm for classical music and its makers naturally. Her mother was a piano teacher, and she took piano lessons for years before switching to the flute in the fourth grade. She fell into her eventual career path of arts administration in high school, when she was placed at a local arts organization by a temp agency.  

While studying music performance and French at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, O’Brien had several other part-time jobs at area arts organizations. Upon graduation, she stayed the course with positions at the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and Midori and Friends, both in New York, and the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. She joined the New World Symphony in 2015—several years after it had built its own brand-new facility, the New World Center.  

“It was pretty great working in a new facility that was purpose-built for the organization,” O’Brien says.  

When the Columbus Symphony Orchestra came calling, O’Brien says she was ready to graduate from being the “No. 2 person” at the New World Symphony to having a primary leadership role.  

How will Columbus Symphony Orchestra’s new CEO continue fundraising for the new concert hall?

Part of that leadership will require rejuvenating the orchestra’s concert hall fundraising; recently, the organization was given a two-year extension of its original funding commitment deadline set by the city of Columbus and Downtown Columbus Inc., from June 2025 to June 2027. O’Brien says that conversations must be had about the right size and needs of the building, and she wants to talk to fellow arts leaders about how the space, while designed for orchestra use, can benefit them.   

Doug Kridler, CEO of the Columbus Foundation, praises O’Brien’s record of accomplishment and what he called “her engaging way and her authenticity in caring for this art form.”  

“Maureen knows that any aspiration like a new home for CSO will rise and fall on the ability to make its case with clarity, passion and humility,” Kridler says. “I don’t feel it is fair to put the load of getting such a huge project across the finish line on her shoulders—it is a community question that needs to be answered. I do feel, though, that Maureen is the right person at the right time to help steward a thoughtful process toward its conclusion.”  

Markovich says the orchestra remains bullish on the project, even if its particulars might evolve. “When you get new leadership, it is the perfect opportunity to rethink your planning assumptions and rethink the feasibility and the scale of the project to make sure it all is still appropriate,” Markovich says.  

For her part, O’Brien is eager to get to work—and to experience something she has missed during her decade in Miami.  

“My mom is from Indiana, my dad is from Iowa,” she says. “It’s a part of the country that I enjoy, and I’m now looking forward to having seasons again.” 

This story appeared in the September 2025 issue of Columbus Monthly