The ongoing economic downturn has limited support for the Maine Music Society, but acts of generosity offer tender comfort.

Lewiston-Auburn has been quietly developing a reputation for its performing arts. Bates College, Public Theatre, LA Arts and Maine Music Society provide concert, theater and dance attractions throughout the year.

These programs not only enrich the intellectual climate for the city’s residents, but also draw others from away to explore the offerings of the state’s second largest city.

Maine Music Society also performs in many other Maine communities, extending Lewiston-Auburn’s reputation.

The structure of Maine Music Society, which supports the artistic and educational activities of the professional Maine Chamber Ensemble and the Androscoggin Chorale, encourages a variety of programming genres unusual if not unique, ranging through orchestral, choral, and chamber music and including opera and dance.

Over the past dozen years, Maine Music Society has performed major, well-known works such as Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and Handel’s Messiah; new works of American art by composers such as Bruce Saylor and Stephen Paulus; spectacle as a fully-staged opera or a dance program with Robinson Ballet Company of Bangor; standard works of literature by Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi, Brahms; American musical-theater greats; and many delightful surprises for audiences underserved in professional, live performance of musical art.

All this performance activity constitutes the public face of an arts institution. Maine Music Society and Lewiston-Auburn’s other arts organizations provide other services less publicized, less visible, perhaps of greater impact. Chief among these are the different types of educational activities, in school and out for students, and in various forums for adults.

As public funding for education is squeezed, arts programs frequently suffer attack as unnecessary or unaffordable. Non-school programs then constitute an alternative, complementary, or sometimes sole opportunity to engage young persons in the developmental strengths of the arts.

A more subtle impact lies in the collaborative network of community-building that grows among arts institutions. This force characterizes all not-for-profit organizations, indeed can be regarded as their animating energy.

Not-for-profit organizations at their core operate as nurturing agents for the communities they serve. They nurture not only their particular clients – the homeless, the ill, the violated, the recovering, the seekers of hope. They nurture also the communities in which they serve, nurture those communities to recall and aspire to the higher callings of humanity – spiritual growth, empathy, consideration, responsibility. They do so by steady focus on service rather than profit (business sector) and without distraction of political accommodation (public sector).

They do this, however, at something of a disadvantage; for, although profit is not their aim, money is their means.

Not-for-profits by design depend largely on the generosity of donors, whether individuals, corporations, foundations or public funds. That generosity comes as cash, in-kind services and volunteerism. Small, community-based not-for-profits do not exist without delivering a lot of service on unbelievably tight budgets. This circumstance makes them extremely vulnerable to economic fluctuation. Small reductions of revenue disproportionately disrupt services. Prolonged reductions quickly threaten the very existence of the organization, there being so little excess to trim.

Exasperatingly, these crises usually coincide with increased calls for services, especially for social service agencies.

Maine Music Society, like arts organizations nationwide, has suffered the blasts of the ongoing economic downturn. A significant deficit for the first time in its 12 years seriously raised the question whether this cultural asset can endure. The board and staff and musicians united in their resolve to weather this storm. Prudent oversight and management coupled with renewed dedication have led to certain decisions and acts of generosity that should shore up the battered sea wall.

The final program of this season, Beethoven’s Mass in C for chorus, orchestra and soloists, scheduled for performances in Portland and Lewiston, has been scaled back. In its place the Androscoggin Chorale will perform without orchestra, in Lewiston only, the Requiem Mass by Luigi Cherubini, a composer much admired by Beethoven for his dramatic gifts.

Next season’s concert series will eliminate one orchestral program, although there will be an offsetting expansion of the popular “Battle of the Blends” into a two-day festival.

Many members of the Androscoggin Chorale, who volunteer their time and effort in preparation for choral concerts, have stepped up monetary contributions.

Many of the professional players of the Maine Chamber Ensemble donated their services for the very fine and well received concert last month.

Directors of the board, in service to their community, are augmenting their support.

The Mead Corporation has donated a matching grant of $2,500 for new contributions.

Nonprofit organizations are a gossamer net, delicate, easily overlooked, that quietly bind and sustain the spiritual heart of a community in all the varieties of generous impulse. It is good for citizens, corporate and individual, to reflect, especially in time of need, how vulnerable these agencies are.

Peter Frewen is the artistic director of the Maine Music Society in Lewiston.