Grant Park’s Loss
On the verge of its 60th season and just as it’s about to hit an impressive new stride, the venerable Grant Park Music Festival has been left leaderless. Last week Catherine Cahill, the festival’s general director and artistic director for the past three years, announced her impending departure for the New York Philharmonic, where she’ll serve as general manager, reporting to the orchestra’s highly touted executive director Deborah Borda. Cahill says she isn’t leaving because she was dissatisfied with her job, but because the New York Philharmonic was such a good opportunity: “They called, and I didn’t think I could pass up such an offer even though I love Chicago.”
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In her brief tenure Cahill made substantial improvements in the Grant Park festival, and her announcement had several people closely connected to the festival wondering why she chose to leave just as she was beginning to make her presence felt. In a long interview last week Cahill noted one factor that may have tipped her hand in favor of New York: the strict bottom-line mentality that has taken hold at the Chicago Park District since the arrival of Forrest Claypool as general superintendent. “We’ve had to fight for every penny we get,” says Cahill. She calls Robert Penn, the previous superintendent and the man who hired her, a “people person who passionately loved the parks.”
season. Cahill also broadened the spectrum to include theater and dance events where budgets would allow.
