Horn in hand, you'd feel at home in Powell River

Coastal town builds a reputation for musical communion on an international scale

Daphne Bramham

Vancouver Sun

Saturday, July 03, 2004

POWELL River -- It was a bit of a shock for the boaters coming in from a 30-knot blow to find a tuba player on the dock.

The tuba player, by the way, wasn't just some guy with a beat-up instrument that he'd picked up in a second-hand store. The player was Nathan Rawls, a third-year music student at Texas Tech.

Rawls was taking a break from the packed schedule of rehearsals, auditions and lessons at the Symphony Orchestra Academy of the Pacific.

A few metres away in the Beach Garden Hotel that's been taken over by the 89 students and 22 faculty, the sound of oboes drifts down toward the dock. In one of the meeting rooms, horn players listen as Oto Carrillo of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and David Michaux of the Victoria Symphony Orchestra critique their performances.

The fledgling academy is the only orchestral school of its kind in Canada and tonight the students will play the closing concert of its first-ever season.

The program is a challenging one. The second half is Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, Opus 14 -- a work that even professional orchestras have been known to stumble through.

Arthur Arnold is the music director and conductor of this year's orchestra. He's worked with some of the best orchestras in the world, from Moscow to Seoul.

The rest of the 22 faculty also have amazing credentials. There's Evan Wilson, the principal viola for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Godfried Hoogeveen, the principal cello for the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra has come from the Netherlands, and concertmaster Alexander Kalashkov from the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra.

The students are also from all over. There's one from Malaysia, another from Kazakhstan.

But unlike the faculty, the students are a bit of a hodge-podge from near-professionals like Russian oboe player Pavel Morunov, who is working on his doctorate at Northwestern University in Chicago, and oboe player Chris Chen from Hong Kong, who will be starting his master's degree at Juilliard in the fall, to clarinet player Kate Frobeen from Victoria, who until the past two weeks hadn't seriously considered a career playing in a symphony orchestra.

That diversity of abilities and aspirations is one of the criticisms of the first-ever academy. Morunov and Chen both say they've found it frustrating to be playing with others who are scarcely out of high school, although both are impressed with the quality of the teaching.

"We're kind of defining what this is. We are seeing this year what works and what doesn't work," says Chuck Ullery, the principal bassoonist for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Despite the start-up pains, the good folks of Powell River have won rave reviews. Although some of the students are staying in hotels, many of the students are billeted with families. Morunov calls them "the nicest people ever." Chen says, "Canadians are the friendliest people you'll ever meet."

They're high on the scenery. It's hard not to be -- except for the mill.

A mill town may seem an unlikely place for a symphony school. It might even seem a bit silly that people like artistic director Don James even dream such dreams in a place that's five hours and two ferry rides from a big city.

But James doesn't just dream about beautiful music and pulling together some of the best musicians in the world. He's pragmatic about what the arts can do for a community in addition to drawing it together in a common cause.

Right after James came up with the idea, he and general manager Michael Heron began work on the business plan and wrote a budget with the firm determination that it would not end up in the red.

Starting up the academy cost about $250,000 this year. Included in that cost was buying a school and renovating it to provide some dormitory rooms for students and rehearsal rooms. The money came mostly from private sources, not government.

But they did get a grant from the economic development society. The reason? They went to the society with the rather surprising projection that the academy would have an economic spinoff to the community of about $13 million.

But they also went with history on their side.

Music figures prominently in the town's present and its future because if you're European or if you know anything about choral music, you've heard of Powell River and Kathaumixw.

Kathaumixw was another of Don James's dreams. It's the biennial choral festival that opens on Tuesday and as Jean-Claude Wilkens -- the secretary-general of the International Federation for Choral Music -- attests, it is one of the best known in the world.

"This is a point on the world map of choral music," he says. "Ask anybody in the choral world about Canada and Powell River is one of the first places they'll name."

James never imagined it would grow into this. In fact, he admits that he never figured it would survive the first year.

But next week, the 89 symphony players will be replaced by 1,200 singers from the best choirs in the world coming to compete at Kathaumixw, the Coast Salish word meaning "a gathering together of different people."

There are three concerts every afternoon and two concerts every evening during the festival, which starts with a gala Tuesday night and ends with another gala on July 10.

So if a tuba player is spotted on the dock this week, just imagine what it might be like next week running into the entire Guangzhou children's choir?

dbramham@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2004

 Page Update: October 05, 2004