PEOPLE TO WATCH

Micah Levy, founding music director of the Orange County Chamber Orchestra, will be severely challenged in the coming year by continuing financial pressures. In September, Levy had to cancel half the 1991-92 season--the orchestra’s ninth--because of falling ticket sales and donations.

It’s been a long haul since 1983 when Levy, then 31 and a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, launched the chamber orchestra with a concert at the Santa Ana Civic Center Auditorium. Within a year, he had moved the concerts to Loyola Marymount University in Orange. A year after that, he also began offering concerts at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa.

Levy established a reputation for eclectic and adventuresome programming, often eschewing the standard overture-concerto-symphony format and shifting among chronological periods with sometimes dizzying ease.

Trouble began after he abandoned his base in Orange and moved all his concerts to the Irvine Barclay Theatre in 1990. His North County subscribers failed to move with him. Currently his subscriber base is down from more than 500 to about 200 and his budget has dropped from $100,000 to about $75,000. The new year will be critical to the organization.