As it begins its 19th season next week, the small but well-respected Chicago String Ensemble struggles to regain its bearings in the wake of the resignation earlier this month of its only two full-time staff members, music director Alan Heatherington and general manager Mary Jo Deysach. Heatherington, who didn’t return calls for comment on his resignation, helped launch the CSE almost two decades ago and has conducted all but one of the group’s concerts. Deysach oversaw the group’s business affairs. “This organization was a labor of love for both Alan and Mary Jo,” says Virginia Graham, who’s now acting executive director of the ensemble as well as one of its concertmasters.
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The resignations appear to have been caused by the group’s deteriorating finances and a major shift in the makeup of its board of directors. According to Graham, “When there was enough money flowing into the organi-zation, there was con-siderable freedom in deciding how to run it, but when the money stopped flowing, that’s when tensions devel-oped.” By the end of its 1994 fiscal year the CSE had accumulated a deficit of around $37,000. Sources say much of the red ink resulted from a sudden decrease in contribu-tions from individuals and the expenses in-volved in performing at three locations. (In the 1980s and early 1990s, when financial support for the arts was more readily available than it is today, the CSE began performing in the western suburbs and Evanston.) Within the organization financial concerns were coupled with a realization that the 20-odd-member board lacked someone with leadership abilities.
Tensions began to escalate this past spring when the board started drawing up the budget for its current fiscal year. Because contributed income continued to fall last year, Christensen and the board decided $10,000 needed to be trimmed from the group’s $170,000 budget and proposed cutting Heatherington’s $23,500 salary by 40 percent and Deysach’s $20,500 salary by 20 percent. When that proposal met with protests the board agreed to reduce Heatherington’s and Deysach’s salaries by much smaller amounts and make additional cuts elsewhere in the budget.
