Archives West Finding Aid

William Crawford III (August 18, 1932-August 13, 2013) was born in New York City to Anne King Weld (1910-1982), of the famed Weld family of Massachusetts, and William Crawford, Jr. (1908-1972), the manager of Boston’s department store Bonwit Teller. Crawford III was educated at The Brunswick School, a private school in Connecticut, where he was immersed in drama and stage performances. Similarly, he was involved in the performing arts at Bard College, from which he received his bachelor’s degree in 1955. He continued singing after he graduated, playing the role of Giorgio Germont in Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata in community productions. After his graduation from Bard, Crawford joined the Navy and worked for a bank. In 1960, he returned to the performing arts and became the general manager of the US division of the Festival of Two Worlds of Spoleto, Italy. Crawford traveled to Italy every summer to help manage the Festival. Crawford worked directly with Gian-Carlo Menotti, the composer who founded the Festival. Menotti trusted Crawford, and his letters were full of discussions of fund-raising, hiring, and arranging trips for the performers, and on occasion, Menotti asked Crawford to check out performers and performances held in New York. In 1968, Crawford left Spoleto and became the Artistic Administrator of the Santa Fe Opera. After two years, Crawford joined the American Ballet Company in 1970 as general administrator until its dissolution in 1971. He then joined the Joffrey Ballet as its general manager in September 1971. He remained at the Joffrey Ballet until the late 1970s, when he became the manager for Peter Schickele (P.D.Q. Bach). In that capacity, he produced P.D.Q. Bach’s Black Forest Bluegrass recording (1989), and was co-editor of The Peter Schickele Rag.

Crawford spent his retirement years stepping up his collecting first-edition scores and compiling a Catalogue of his printed scores.

Crawford had a lifelong passion for opera and was a long-time subscriber to the Metropolitan Opera. Crawford had many close friends in the performing arts, including composers Samuel Barber and Gian-Carlo Menotti, conductor and music director at the Spoleto Festival Thomas Schippers, choreographer Glen Tetley, stage designer Rouben Ter-Arutunian, pianist John Browning, music biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz, and musicologist and antiquarian dealer Nigel Simeone.