“Twenty-year-old Ars Viva is shutting down after the conclusion of its season in May, maestro Alan Heatherington announced during a concert yesterday,” writes Danielle Braff in Monday’s (4/13) Crain’s Chicago Business. “Ars Viva, which consists of 40 to 60 freelance musicians—many from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra—performed five subscription concerts a season at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie. Heatherington plans to become ordained as an Anglican priest and may open a church near his Libertyville home in the future with the help of his wife, Gayle Heatherington, who has been serving as executive director of the orchestra…. The couple said it was likely not financially feasible to pass along Ars Viva and its audience to another conductor. ‘The work involved both for myself as executive director and for Alan as music director has largely been done as a labor of love,’ Gayle Heatherington said.… The orchestra [has] enough in cash reserves to complete the season and satisfy their obligations. The Heatheringtons founded the orchestra … 20 years ago at St. Luke’s Church in Evanston. It twice has been named professional Orchestra of the Year by the Illinois Council of Orchestras. Its final concert will be May 17 at the North Shore Center.”
Posted April 14, 2015
