Arts San Antonio, a nonprofit that for years brought a diverse and non-mainstream roster of performers from around the world to the city, has shut down midway through its 28th season.

The board for the arts presenter sent a letter to patrons Jan. 6 letting them know that it had ended operations and canceled all upcoming performances. Ticket-holders will not be reimbursed, the letter said, because the organization is insolvent.

“Unfortunately, events have made it impossible to continue our operations,” the letter states. “The abrupt departure of our executive director, a significant shift in charitable funding and increased competition in the city for arts dollars has caused us irreversible financial hardships, and we can no longer continue to exist.”

The most recently available federal tax return for the group, filed for 2017, listed $675,823 in liabilities against $211,140 in assets. The group operated in the red that year, showing a loss of about $277,000.

More than half of Arts San Antonio’s revenue that year was from ticket sales. It received $249,000 in government grants and about $236,000 in other contributions.

Executive Director John Toohey, who had led the organization since 2009, left his post at the end of September to help his wife through a health crisis. At the time, he said, the board talked about hiring an interim director.

Toohey said he has not been involved with the organization since and was disappointed to learn of the board’s decision.

“I think it’s too bad,” he said. “I think that we worked very hard to build an audience and establish a role in the community for ultra-high-quality work and that audience was growing, so that’s too bad.”

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The group was founded in 1992 as a merger of the San Antonio Performing Arts Association, which presented national and international artists, and the San Antonio Festival, which presented annual performing arts festivals, including operas, for 10 years.

The group’s most high-profile recent offering was last year’s appearance by Yo-Yo Ma as part of his Bach Project, a series of performances of Bach’s cello suites across the globe paired with public service events. He performed at Trinity University’s Laurie Auditorium in April, a concert that was simulcast at Mission Marquee Plaza, the community space on the former site of Mission Drive-In, and at Texas A&M International University in Laredo. The next day, Ma trekked to Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, to perform and meet with people.

Highlights from past seasons include Ballet Folklórico de México de Amalia Heranandez, which the organization regularly brought to town, the mime Marcel Marceau, the Soweto Gospel Choir, the Kronos Quartet, the Gershwin Big Band, the Royal Scotts Dragoon Guards, the modern dance company Pilobolus, the Buena Vista Social Club Orchestra, Virsky Ukrainian National Dance Company and holiday presentations of “The Nutcracker.”

The canceled performances for the remainder of the season are concerts by cellist Gabriel Royal, the Hot Sardines, and pianists Andreas Kern, Paul Cibis and Van Cliburn International Piano Competition Gold Medalist Yekwon Sunwoo, as well as offerings from the Peking Acrobats, the traditional Japanese drumming group Yamato and magician Vitaly.

“It’s tragic,” said Frank Villani, who ran the organization for 21 years and is now CEO at Magik Theatre.

Villani said the Majestic Theatre and the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, which opened five years ago, now bring in some of the types of artists that Arts San Antonio specialized in, including international troupes.

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“But generally, those are the larger name, more commercial type (performers),” Villani said. “There were so many things over the years that Arts San Antonio brought in that you knew would never make money, but that it was absolutely imperative that the people of San Antonio got to see that type of programming.”

Debbie Racca-Sittre, director of the city’s Department of Arts & Culture, said she will be meeting with Arts San Antonio board members in the next few weeks to see if it’s at all possible to rescue some of the scrapped performances. She noted that there are some similarities between what Arts San Antonio did and the programming of the Carver Community Cultural Center and Musical Bridges Around the World.

Subscribers Christine F. and Richard Green, who have been going to Arts San Antonio performances for six years, said they were disappointed by the news. The retirees, who also subscribe to the San Antonio Symphony, said they’re unhappy that their money won’t be refunded but that the loss of programming is a bigger issue.

“We feel it’s a loss for San Antonio,” Christine F. Green said. “A major cultural performing arts organization just goes under, that’s really unfortunate in this town.”

dlmartin@express-news.net | Twitter: @DeborahMartinEN