Its home base is in Raleigh, North Carolina's Memorial Auditorium, and it performs about 60 concerts a year in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and Cary metropolitan area. The orchestra has appeared twice at Carnegie Hall in New York City and once each at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and at Orchestra Hall in Chicago. It has three recordings, one of Durham composer Robert Ward's compositions, one of Holiday Pops music and a all-Beethoven recording. This orchestra has one of the most extensive education programs of any U.S. orchestra. And these concerts are a part of the schools' music education curriculum.
Music teachers write and help present the curriculum to fellow teachers at a yearly workshop.
In addition, the North Carolina Symphony stages a yearly youth concerto competition, sponsors the Triangle Youth Philharmonic for high school-aged musicians, hires collegiate musicians as string interns, and presents a family concert series in Raleigh. The orchestra is led by Music Director and Conductor Gerhardt Zimmermann, who also guest conducts for such orchestras as the National, Atlanta, Phoenix and Long Beach Symphonies, leads the Canton Symphony in Ohio, and is music director of the Breckenridge Music Institute in Colorado. William Henry Curry is Associate Conductor. Among other government grants are those from the City of Raleigh, the County of Wake and the Town of Cary.