A year ago, the prognosis looked grave for the Orchestra of Illinois. The organization was deeply mired in a cash crisis and had no strategies to raise funds. The deficit had climbed to $115,000, on a budget of $700,000.
The 80 self-governing orchestra members deferred taking any salaries for the 1985-86 season until new funding could be secured. The situation was so desperate that the players association and board of directors seriously considered disbanding the organization.
The great irony was that during this period when so much red ink was being spilled, critics and audiences agreed that the orchestra had never been in better artistic shape.
But over the last 12 months the organization led by Linda G. Moore, its tough-minded executive director, has made remarkable progress toward closing the gap between financial security and musical achievement.
The orchestra closed its year last Sept. 30 with a balanced budget that is a tribute to prudent management and aggressive fundraising.
This means that the Orchestra of Illinois can begin its ninth concert series this weekend in Chicago and Evanston with renewed optimism.
”We are walking a tightrope,” Moore says, ”but at least we are still up there.”
It is a tribute to the orchestra`s positive image within the musical community that several foundations and private donors were willing to support it even when it seemed down for the count.
Chicago Community Trust has given $25,000 to assist in long-range planning and to develop better administrative systems. In a four-year agreement, a major foundation has established a $100,000 line of credit in the orchestra`s name so that the players can be paid even when income lags. The orchestra has received its first grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and both Illinois Arts Council and CityArts have significantly increased their support. Moore says the orchestra is making significant progress toward reaching its 1986-7 fundraising goal of $233,000.
This is not to say that every crisis has been resolved, only that, with these new sources of funds, the Orchestra of Illinois has improved its cash-flow situation and can now focus its attention on making the hard decisions that will affect its long-term growth and welfare.
The 1987 series will mark a period of retrenchment, a move that Moore says will give the orchestra time to decide how best to serve its various constituencies in future seasons.
”We did an in-depth study of where our money was being spent and came to the conclusion that it is not possible to balance our budget by doing all five programs in all three locations,” the executive director explains.
Last season the orchestra presented its programs at the Auditorium Theatre, in Evanston`s Pick-Staiger Concert Hall and in Centre East, Skokie. Of these, the concerts in Pick-Staiger have been the most successful, playing to consistently full houses.
By comparison, the downtown Chicago and Skokie events did not perform up to expectation. Moore hopes that the programs this year, and the way they are packaged, will help to attract more customers.
Although five different subscription programs will be given–the same as last year–only Pick-Staiger will hear the entire series.
The orchestra has cut back its Chicago and Skokie series to three concerts for each location, although subscribers who wish to hear all five programs will be offered free bus transportation between events.
For the last two years the orchestra has presented its downtown series at the 4,000-seat Auditorium, but, with acres of empty seats separating the audience from the players, the musical results suggested a wrong-end-of-the-telescope effect.
Scheduling conflicts and mounting expenses forced management to investigate cheaper, alternative theaters. Medinah Temple became available, although its schedule, too, could not accommodate a full series.
And so the Orchestra of Illinois will present its opening concert, an all-Ravel program directed by principal conductor Guido Ajmone-Marsan, Friday night at Orchestra Hall.
Jean-Philippe Collard is making his local debut as soloist, playing both Ravel piano concertos. (A repeat is scheduled for March 1 in Evanston.) For its downtown concerts of May 15 and June 5, the orchestra will move across the river to Medinah, for many years the Chicago Symphony`s recording home, in addition to being a venue for circuses and miscellaneous entertainment events. Orchestra Hall and Medinah both promise a more intimate environment for making and listening to music (about 2,000 seats will be available at each location) and Moore pronounces the resonant acoustics of Medinah more than acceptable for concert music. Depending on the results of the first rehearsal at Medinah, an acoustical shell may be installed. If all goes as planned, the orchestra will make Medinah its permanent downtown residence as of the 1987-8 season.
A recent marketing survey conducted by Communications Workshop on behalf of the Orchestra of Illinois indicates that a significant number of subscribers and contributors appreciate the fact that the orchestra offers well-balanced programs of live symphonic music to areas that have not had series of this sort previously.
Centre East in Skokie is one such location, and on March 21 the orchestra will begin a three-concert series there with Bruno Bartoletti conducting Prokofiev`s seldom-heard Symphony No. 3 and the Grieg Piano Concerto, with Yin Cheng Zong as soloist. A repeat performance will be given March 22 in Pick-Staiger.
William Doppmann`s ”Counterpoints” for piano and orchestra, commissioned by the orchestra, will have its world premiere at concerts conducted by Ajmone-Marsan April 11 in Skokie and April 12 in Evanston.
The orchestra also will play a nonsubscription performance April 10 in Naperville. Doppmann will perform his own work on a program that includes the Schumann ”Spring” Symphony.
The orchestra returns to Medinah May 15 with Ransom Wilson doing double duty as flute soloist and conductor.
Along with Mozart`s ”Jupiter” Symphony, Wilson will offer a Devienne flute concerto and the local premiere of minimalist composer John Adams` ”The Chairman Dances.” Evanston will hear a repeat on May 17. The current series concludes June 5-7.
That the metropolitan area needs two permanent symphony orchestras and has the resources to support them has never been in question. But the Chicago Symphony Orchestra through its year-round visibility, national and international prestige and elaborate fundraising network enjoys obvious advantages over a smaller organization whose concert series runs only from February to June.
Moore hopes to improve both the orchestra`s contributed income and subscription sales by adding a sixth program to the present schedule of five, and running the concert series from January to June. This might create potential scheduling problems with Lyric Opera, which shares most of its instrumental personnel with the Orchestra of Illinois. But with proper planning this should not prove a serious obstacle.
What Moore and her board of directors have yet to demonstrate to potential supporters, however, is precisely what kind of entity the orchestra considers itself.
Is it an orchestra committed to community service and lasting artistic excellence–or is it merely a fancy means of keeping a group of able freelance musicians together and employed during the five months that separate the end of the Lyric Opera season and the start of summer Grant Park concerts?
If the former is true, then the organization must abandon its policy of coasting along on the sporadic services of a ”musical advisor” and engage a fulltime music director.
Ajmone-Marsan, to be sure, is a talented conductor, and his guidance over the last four seasons has clearly been beneficial for the orchestra.
But as his European activities develop, it is very probable he will have even less time to devote to the Chicago musicians than the three programs he now gives them. An orchestra cannot grow under an absentee musical landlord, no matter how gifted he may be.
The Orchestra of Illinois urgently needs the artistic continuity that only permanent leadership can provide.
Of the conductors who have crossed the Orchestra of Illinois podium in recent seasons, none made a more positive impression on the audience and the players themselves than Marek Janowski and Christof Perick.
Unfortunately, Janowski`s greatly expanded career seems to have forced him to drop Chicago from his list of regular musical outposts.
Perick, however, seems to have no major career conflicts that would prevent him from accepting an important podium position in Chicago. His conducting of Wagner`s ”Parsifal” was high on the list of musical glories from the most recent Lyric Opera season.
One is confident he could repeat that success as music director of that same orchestra. The appointment is something the Orchestra of Illinois board should seriously consider.
The guess in this quarter is that the season ahead will mark a decisive turning point for the organization. The orchestra`s artistic worth is beyond question. The administrative leadership is strong. The fiscal buffers are in place.
What is needed now is a greater internal commitment to building a sturdy, viable institution that will fill the need of the metropolitan area for more symphonic music at the highest level.
