The Current26:28How this conductor is bringing Powell River, B.C. together with music
Arthur Arnold faced a big decision in February of 2022. He was the music director of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra when war broke out.
“I was flabbergasted that Putin invaded, that he invaded Ukraine,” he says. “I came to the conclusion I just I cannot live with myself if I don’t take a stand.”
So he asked the orchestra if he could speak out. They said no; it would put them all in danger.
“That left me with only one thing and that was to resign and with that to make a protest.”
Arnold stepped down, a decision he says he’s never regretted.
In fact, he says it’s given him more time for his work in what might seem like an unlikely location: Powell River, B.C. An isolated city of 13,000 people on the west coast, it takes two ferries to get there from Vancouver.
The town used to be centred around its big pulp and paper mill. But now that it’s closed down, residents hope that arts and culture — and people like Arthur Arnold — could be its future.
Arnold first visited Powell River in 2000 to guest conduct at the Kathaumixw International Choral Festival. He enjoyed it so much he started coming back each year.
But he fell in love with more than just the city and its surroundings, the ocean and mountains. It’s also where he met his future wife, Kim Stokes, solidifying his connection to Powell River. He had been travelling between Moscow, Powell River and his home country of The Netherlands for years by the time the war broke out.
Arnold says leaving his job in Moscow gave him the time he needed to focus on an event he started in 2012 while living in Powell River part time — the Pacific Region International Summer Music Association (PRISMA).
It’s a two-week classical music festival held every year at the end of June. Students from around the world are chosen to attend, where they learn and perform alongside guest artists from major orchestras. Thousands attend the final performance held outside on the beach.
That’s where the Tla’amin First Nation have performed traditional songs backed up by a full orchestra.
Drew Blaney, Tla’amin culture and heritage manager who also sings and composes the traditional music, says he appreciates how Arnold involves him in the planning process.
“It’s not some token thing that we’re being there to do a land acknowledgement, or we’re just there to check a box of ‘we invited the natives here.'”
‘It just calmed the entire room’
But start asking around in Powell River and it becomes clear that Arnold’s influence on the town goes far beyond the festival.
“It’s like having Wayne Gretzky leading your minor hockey program,” quips the town’s mayor, Ron Woznow.
Arnold has shown up to play his cello at particularly heated town council meetings.
“It just calmed the entire room,” recalls councillor George Doubt. “I found it spiritually uplifting for him to do that.”
He also remembers finding Arnold playing his cello at the clinic when he went to get his first vaccination during the height of COVID.
“I think it makes everybody think about how they fit into the society and what they can do to make life better, which is what I see Arthur trying to do.”
Coping with the mill closure
Doubt says he hopes Arnold’s work will help fill another void in Powell River — an economic one left by the closing of the town’s major employer, the pulp and paper mill. It officially shut down in 2023, laying off hundreds of people. But at its height, 4,000 people worked there.
Negotiations are underway for another industry to move into the site, but in the meantime, the mayor says the city is operating with $7 million less in tax revenue.
“There is some hope that the more cultural events we get going, the more people know about them, the more we’ll bring that industry, the cultural industry, here to take over the forest industry,” said Doubt.
Part of that cultural industry could centre around another project of Arnold’s. He was looking for a new office for PRISMA when he stumbled across an empty space in an historic building overlooking the mill and the ocean. He secured government funding, and now construction is underway to turn it into a performance hall with office space and storage for community arts groups.
Arthur is quick to acknowledge that the history of Powell River is what makes a project like this even possible. “I think we stand on the shoulders from generations before us,” he said. “It’s not something that you can just start.”
In addition to the rich cultural heritage of the Tla’amin First Nation, the region’s connection to the arts go back to the early 1900s, when the Powell River Company was formed to build Western Canada’s first pulp and paper mill. The company was starting the town and mill from scratch so they could plan everything, right down to the type of workers they wanted in the community.
“Originally, there was a vision that culture was extremely important, so both sports and arts, mostly music, was very important right from the very beginnings of this community,” says Rob Southcott, a city councillor who was born and raised in Powell River.
The company was following an urban planning approach called the Garden City Concept, which prized, among other things, a sense of community. To that end, the company hired people to work at the mill who were also musical. Arthur Arnold says that’s part of the reason there’s so much music in Powell River today.
“That seed has been planted and it spread and the music trees grew, and here we are.”
All musicians needed
For Nancy Hollmann, Arnold’s impact has been personal. When she moved to Powell River in 1966 to teach arts and music in school, she quickly got involved in the arts community, leading choirs and playing piano wherever she was needed.
But at 89, Hollmann is long retired. Her foray back into the music scene happened after she attended one of the first concerts of a new amateur symphony that Arnold had been supporting.
“I noticed that they didn’t have a bassoon. And I just, silly me, I mentioned to somebody, ‘oh, I played bassoon 40 years ago, but I haven’t played it since,'” recalls Hollmann. Word reached Arnold and he asked if she’d take it up again if they found her an instrument.
“And I said, ‘I’m 80 years old. I probably would die if I tried to blow a bassoon. And he said ‘but what a wonderful way to go.’ And that’s why I borrowed a bassoon from the school district because I’m relearning it.”
Today she’s proud to say she’s the oldest person in the symphony.
His work in Powell River may seem humble compared to leading the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. But Arnold says, in many ways, it’s the same work he’s always tried to do.
“Community building is something really beautiful,” he says. “Music is the perfect vehicle to do that. We understand music deep inside. To connect people through music is one of the most beautiful things that I can think of, and I feel very privileged to be able to do that.”
The setting just makes it all the more meaningful, he says.
“I’ve conducted in many places in the world, and I just feel connected to Powell River and to the people here. This beautiful isolated community. It’s like being on an island. And to be able to work here and do this is beautiful.”
