May 12--When a classical music group disbands, the cause almost invariably is financial -- declining ticket sales and contributions, mounting deficits, rising costs, or some combination thereof. It's almost unheard of for any such organization to go out of business as long as fundraising and attendance remain strong and the artistic level remains high.
So much for commonplace wisdom. Chicago's Ars Viva Symphony Orchestra, as it turns out, is calling it a day just when the ensemble would appear to have many fine days ahead of it.
The well-supported, critically praised orchestra, founded 20 seasons ago by director Alan Heatherington, will perform its final concert Sunday afternoon at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie.
It no doubt will be a sentimental occasion for the musicians -- many of whom perform in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra -- certainly for Heatherington and his wife, Gayle, who's been Ars Viva's executive director since its inception.
While regretfully made, their decision to shut down the orchestra was "entirely personal," the Heatheringtons said in a joint interview last week.
"I've discovered in the course of the last year that it wasn't possible to do everything in terms of my time and energy," said Alan Heatherington, 69, who will continue as music director of the Chicago Master Singers chorus.
"We are both a little older, and we feel it. When you're a smaller organization such as ours, running the office essentially is a one-person job. For 20 years, Gayle has been the Ars Viva office. So the question became: Can we both continue to do this?"
"I have felt I wanted to retire from arts management for the last three or four years, but I was willing to continue doing it as long as it was right for Alan," said Gayle Heatherington, 66. "When it became the right time for Alan to step down, it became an easy decision for me."
Ironically, Ars Viva subscriptions and ticket sales have been trending higher in recent seasons, with attendance averaging a respectable 80 percent of capacity, according to the executive director. The bulk of the not-for-profit group's $450,000 operating budget goes toward musicians' fees and hall rental costs, with the Heatheringtons' combined income accounting for roughly 10 percent of that amount, she said.
Twenty years into the life of Ars Viva seemed a good time to make a long-planned sea change in the couple's own lives, Alan Heatherington explained.
"A sequence of circumstances prevented me from pursuing my calling at an earlier time," he said. "But with the passing of years and a renewed sense of that calling, the present time seems to be a last opportunity to follow the call and do the work we believe is still possible for us to do."
The "calling" to which he refers is the religious ministry.
In May 2013, Alan Heatherington resigned as music director of the Lake Forest Symphony to complete a seminary education begun years earlier that would lead to his becoming ordained as a priest in the Anglican church. He is presently a subdeacon at a small Anglican church in Spring Grove in McHenry County. The Heatheringtons are considering founding a new church near their home in Libertyville.
The conductor broke the news of the shutdown to his musicians at the dress rehearsal before the April 12 Ars Viva concert, at which he informed the audience of his decision. The orchestra players were, he said, "stunned and surprised, because of what Ars Viva means to them. Several musicians were almost literally in tears."
"I was profoundly saddened when Alan told me about the disbanding of Ars Viva," said violinist Ilya Kaler, a longtime friend and colleague of the conductor. Kaler will perform the rarely heard Violin Concerto by Miklos Rosza at Sunday's finale.
"Working with Alan has been a path of joy and discovery for me, and performing with Ars Viva has held a very special place in my heart," Kaler added. "The level of music-making, the spirit of collaboration and cooperation among the musicians, have been of a kind one does not encounter even in the world's finest orchestras."
Could Ars Viva go on with another music director taking Heatherington's place? Not likely, given that the orchestra is, in Kaler's words, "Alan's creation and reflects his artistic personality to a huge extent."
Gayle Heatherington further points out that, from the group's first concert in May 1996, its existence has been predicated on the loyalty of board members to her husband. "They served on the board because they wanted to promote what Alan was doing," she said.
Also, she added, "Alan received a fixed salary that wasn't enough to (pay) another conductor to come in after him. My salary also was always contingent on the budget, and sometimes I didn't pay myself at all. We managed the bottom line very carefully."
Because of that, the board won't have to worry about how to dispose of Ars Viva's assets following the season finale. "We have just enough money in our capital reserves that those funds will go to paying the players and finishing out the year, so we will break even," said the executive director, who operates her own graphic design firm.
Ars Viva will not be dissolved as a not-for-profit corporation, however, since the conductor plans to continue hiring orchestra members to accompany selected concerts of his Chicago Master Singers.
The revised program for Ars Viva's final concert will include works by some of his favorite composers, such as Dvorak's "Othello" Overture and Brahms' Symphony No. 1, which he directed at the orchestra's first concert at the North Shore Center in 1997.
No more pithy farewell could be imagined than that of Mark George, president and CEO of the Music Institute of Chicago, which partners with Ars Viva on its children's music education program, Music for Life.
Ars Viva, George observed in a statement, "is going out on top, as befits a champion."
The Ars Viva Symphony will give its last concert at 3 p.m. Sunday at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie. Alan Heatherington will conduct works by Dvorak, Sibelius, Brahms and Miklos Rosza, with violinist Ilya Kaler as soloist. A reception will follow in the lobby; $32-$70, discounts for seniors and youth; 855-277-8482, http://www.arsviva.org.
Sharps and flats
A resolution in the Chicago City Council has designated June 30 as Duffie A. Adelson Day in the city. That is the day Adelson will retire as president of Merit School of Music, after 33 years of remarkable service to the esteemed Chicago educational institution, which provides music instruction for disadvantaged youth.
Adelson, who began her Merit career in 1982 as a teacher and subsequently became its associate director, executive director and president, was honored as part of MeritFest, a performance showcase for young string students, on Tuesday at Symphony Center. More than 100 Merit alumni from across the country were expected took part in the tribute to Adelson.
For dedicated collectors of classical recordings, downloads, webcasts and podcasts will never replace vinyl LPs and compact discs: recorded music you can actually hold in your hands. Those collectors will want to check out the hundreds upon hundreds of vinyl albums and CDs dealers from across the country are selling at the 28th Midwest Classical Record Show, 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday at the Holiday Inn Chicago North Shore, 5300 W. Touhy Ave., Skokie. This year's edition promises to be bigger than ever. Admission is $2; http://www.midwestclassicalshow.com.
Chicago will be the site of a major festival of contemporary music to be packed into four days in October 2016. With composers Augusta Read Thomas and Stephen Burns as lead curators, the Ear Taxi Festival will be held throughout the city as part of a series of new music festivals given every other year in select U.S. cities with support from the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, which supports the work of emerging American composers. The 2016 event promises to be huge in scope, with more than 300 musicians and 19 ensembles participating, 68 composers represented, 33 world premieres, two Chicago and two U.S. premieres, and four installations. The Harris Theater, Chicago Cultural Center and Constellation Chicago will donate performance space and resources. Free performances will be given at the Chicago Cultural Center, along with free pop-up concerts in various Chicago neighborhoods. If funding permits, nearly every program will include the world premiere of at least one newly commissioned work, said Thomas. You can follow the festival as it takes shape over next 16 months at http://www.eartaxifestival.com.
Von Rhein is a Tribune critic.
jvonrhein@tribpub.com
