John Freese, the orchestra's board president, would not comment on the nature of the issues under investigation, and said that the employees who resigned were not in danger of being fired. He would not discuss the circumstances of the resignations at all.

"We really ought not to make comments about personnel issues," he said. "I don't want to go into too much detail. I think I can say that it does relate to some financial issues."

These financial issues have come to light within the last six weeks.

Most of the trustees contacted by the Journal-Register were confident that the problem would be quickly solved, and that everything was under control, but Mike Houston, former mayor of Springfield and also a trusee, said, "There's been some problems. There's no question about that."