Out of tune
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Conservatory, she was associate conductor of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra for six years, and the Nashville Symphony Orchestra for eight years, where she established a popular annual concert tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., called “Let Freedom Ring!” When the State Journal-Register interviewed her as a finalist for the ISO baton, Deal came off as charming, personable and almost folksy.

“I am so opposed to the maestro myth,” she told the reporter. “If you present yourself as an intimidating figure, people aren’t going to want to approach you.” Indeed, during her first few seasons here, Deal beguiled audiences with her publicity panache. The ISO’s Olympic-themed concert at the 2004 State Fair inspired U.S. Judge Richard Mills to write a glowing letter to the SJ-R, declaring that “Central Illinois is blessed to have Maestra Deal and this outstanding Illinois Symphony Orchestra.” For the 2005 Pops in the Park concert, Deal rode in on horseback.

The following year, she arrived on a Harley- Davidson motorcycle. Musicians, however, look to a conductor for musical guidance, and they say Deal simply doesn’t do enough homework to provide much of that. They talk about times when she has conducted in the wrong meter, dress rehearsals where her score wouldn’t stay open because the book hadn’t been cracked before, and the Holiday Pops performance where she kept cueing the violins to play on a piece for brass and bagpipes only. Mark Moore, ISO’s principal tuba player and the designated spokesman for the musicans’ unionization effort, says players first asked the board to conduct an official evaluation of Deal during her third season here, and repeated that request during her sixth season, during her ninth season, and as recently as January. “The requests were made by three different people, at least four times,” Moore says. “These are people who have more than 30 years in the music business.”

Most currently contracted musicians are reluctant to speak on the record about Deal, for fear of losing their jobs. However, Matt Monroe, a French horn player who currently plays with the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra (among others), resigned last season because of Deal. ”It seemed like much of the time she was figuring it out as she went along,” he says. “She’s a pretty good improviser, which can be a useful skill, but being a hard worker is also a useful skill as a conductor.”

It’s not enough for each musician to know his or her music; the conductor is the only one with the score that shows how all the parts fit together. “Train wreck” is a term musicians use for the shaky sensation of the ensemble running off-track, and Monroe and other musicians say they get that queasy feeling too often with Deal. “There are those crisis moments where it seems like everybody’s not in the same place, and in those moments you look to the podium,” Monroe says. “Frequently what you’d see is the top of her head. She was looking down, with her head in the score, trying to figure out where we are.” Christina Spa was one of Deal’s earliest fans. A fellow flutist, Spa attended Deal’s 2000 audition concert. “I remember thinking she’s easy to follow, she has a good pattern,” Spa says. Two years later, Spa began volunteering in the ISO office, and in 2005 she was hired full-time as the special events and education coordinator. As she spent more time around Deal, her impression changed.

”I realized that she has a stage presence that gets the audience, and if you don’t know her, you’re probably taken in,” Spa says. But as a staff member, Spa attended ISO rehearsals, and observed a different side of Deal. The conductor rarely appeared prepared, but would chastise the players when the music fell apart. Similarly, in the office, Deal would tell the staff that she knew how to do all their jobs better than they did. The real Deal was the opposite of the friendly finalist who had publicly denounced the maestro myth. ”Karen never seemed to respect anybody,” Spa says. “Her attitude was always, ‘I’m the conductor, I’m above you.’ ”

The first high-profile departure, Maureen Earley, has steadfastly declined to explain why she and her three-person staff resigned in 2004. However, before they left, they met with a group of musicians who made notes that they have kept in an e-mail archive. According to those notes, the staff felt unable to do their jobs because Deal had become “increasingly uncooperative,” refusing to communicate except via e-mail, not allowing them to arrange appearances or introduce her in public. According to the notes, the staff also believed that Deal had plans to restructure the organization to gain direct authority over the chorus conductor and personnel manager.

A year later, in May 2005, longtime chorus conductor Marion van der Loo was fired. Tensions between the two conductors had been festering for more than two years, and culminated in a fairly public exchange of unpleasantries after a concert in Bloomington [see “Discord in the symphony,” June 30, 2005].

Van der Loo’s successor, Richard Robert Rossi, believed he could get along with the maestra. “Karen made it clear that she doesn’t tolerate insubordination,” Rossi says. “She said we need to make sure that people know we’re on the same page.” Since there can be only one conductor on stage at a time, Rossi’s job was often to “prepare” the chorus (teach the singers their parts), then step aside and let Deal conduct the performance.

Occasionally, he was allowed to conduct the orchestra (or the smaller, more elite chamber orchestra) with his singers. Having signed on in August 2005 for the bargain wage of $11,500 plus gas money (Rossi commuted from Charleston, where he conducts several vocal and instrumental groups and teaches conducting at Eastern Illinois University) and getting no significant raises the first two years, he considered such performance opportunities to be his true salary.

”I was doing it because I really loved working with those musicians and those people. The Mozart ‘Requiem’ and the Durufle [‘Requiem’] were what got me through,” he says. By his third season, however, that non-monetary stipend was dwindling. In a February 2008 e-mail with the subject line “next season,” Deal outlined the repertoire she planned for the orchestra and noted, “there is not anything for you to conduct next year.” She offered to allow Rossi to lead one performance of Handel’s “Messiah” (an audience favorite, but considered old-hat by serious singers) and a few pieces on the Holiday Pops concert.

Their disagreement spilled out during a staff meeting May 5 at St. Agnes Catholic Church, which ISO had just secured as its venue for chamber concerts. As key ISO personnel sat in the Parish Hall discussing the upcoming season, the two conductors argued over which performances Rossi would conduct. Spa, then-ISO’s special events coordinator and a member of St. Agnes, had negotiated the venue agreement, and she cringed as Deal lost her temper in the presence of the priest.

“She kind of threw a hissy fit and slammed down her pencil and said, ‘I’m so fucking tired of this’ and a few other profanities. I was just mortified,” Spa says. “She pretty much ended the meeting by storming out.” Rossi and the other staff members went back to the office and reported the ugly scene to Joan Walters, who Rossi says, lent a sympathetic ear.

“She has a stage presence that gets the audience, and if you don’t know her, you’re probably taken in.”