“For someone who’s been at these concerts since 1980,” Arky said, “it’s very, very painful.”

The chairman of the board reached out to the musicians at BCO on February 1 to thank them for their service and inform them that the band’s March and April programs would be canceled.

In an unexpected twist, however, it looks like the programs will run after all, albeit under a different set name. Longtime BCO Music Director Steven Lipsitt founded a new orchestra to be called the Bach, Beethoven and Brahms Society. With the participation of BCO players, Lipsitt said, the Company plans to resume the March and April programs that BCO had planned. It will honor tickets already issued and offer a new season of five concerts next year.

“The musicians and I are extremely grateful to our audience at Faneuil Hall to the point that we are incorporating a new professional orchestra to try to fulfill a similar mission, a similar role, as well as to do some of the things that we were forced to do. make it from the narrowness of part of BCO’s mission, ”said Lipsitt. “Our audience is among the most enthusiastic in the city, and we believe it is important that the ensemble continue to offer a series of live concerts in this historic space.”

Speaking to The Globe on Wednesday, Lipsitt called BCO’s past months a “cascade of unfortunate interactions and events.” He also expressed his sadness for the end of a beloved ensemble he has overseen as Music Director since 1999.

“It really felt like family almost immediately,” he recalls, “and even more so over the years as we developed a really deep relationship. The first rehearsal at BCO feels like a second rehearsal, because the way that we understand each other is such that we come directly to the substance of musical creation.

The Boston Classical Orchestra was founded in 1980 by violinist Robert Brink, with F. John Adams as first conductor. The group quickly identified with BSO violinist and Boston Pops conductor Harry Ellis Dickson, who conducted them as Music Director from 1983 to 1999. The group attracted leading freelance writers to their ranks. from the Boston area and carved out a niche for themselves in demanding but not stifling performances. of the basic symphonic repertoire – often by Mozart, Haydn or Beethoven – performed on modern instruments in an intimate space.

During his tenure, Lipsitt extended Dickson’s personal approach, often speaking to audiences from the podium, and he continued the group’s mission while working to creatively expand BCO’s programming model. (One program, for example, featured rarely encountered works by Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn.) The orchestra also frequently called on soloists from the local community, a practice that thrilled hometown crowds and often attracted other professional musicians to hear one of their own. BSO Principals Toby Oft (trombone) and Thomas Rolfs (trumpet) are still scheduled to perform with the band, in their new incarnation on March 6.

Smaller ensembles like BCO face an uphill battle in Boston’s overcrowded music ecosystem, especially as institutional funding is well below levels found in other cities. Yet as Boston loses one set, it will win another.

According to BCO timpanist Dennis Sullivan, virtually the entire current orchestra roster will join Lipsitt’s new venture. “For me and my colleagues in the orchestra, this has been a very special ensemble to be a part of,” said Sullivan, adding that a core of musicians had been there since the band was founded in 1980. “There have been many. many wonderful musical experiences. and a beautiful room. It was a happy place for people to come. And we hope that the new organization will give the local public the opportunity to continue to benefit from everything [these musicians] have to offer.

Jeremy Eichler can be reached at jeichler@globe.com