Get Inspired

Ask most any Lower Mainland resident what they know about the city of Powell River and chances are they’ll shrug and say something like, "they have a big mill and you have to take two ferries to get there?"

While it is true that the pulp and paper industry provided the economic foundation on which the town was built, it is the region’s music exports that are now in high demand, helping to draw international attention and throngs of tourists who arrive every summer on the prospects of taking in world class symphonic and choral performances.

The growing phenomenon is the result of the ambitious work of the internationally acclaimed Powell River Academy of Music, which currently has 653 students, 26 faculty and staff, and in 2007 produced 76 concerts for some 24,000 appreciative audience members.

Founded in the 1970’s by artistic director and Order of Canada Member Don James, the Academy stages an annual festival entitled the Symphony and Opera Academy of the Pacific’s (SOAP) Spectacular Summer Series. In addition, every other summer on even-numbered years it draws 35 to 40 choirs from as many as 15 countries to take part in an international choral festival entitled Kathaumixw, a Salish term meaning "a gathering of different peoples."
 
More recently, however, James and the Academy’s Board of Directors took another big step forward by adding an opera program. When they first came up with the idea in 2005, they appealed to the Powell River Ayjoomixw Spirit of BC Committee for help in getting it off the ground. The committee, in turn, approached 2010 Legacies Now for support in staging the Academy’s first major operatic performance.

Specifically, the committee applied for an Arts Innovations grant that would enable James to commission the Victoria Symphony’s renowned composer-in-residence, Tobin Stokes, to re-arrange an opera he had written for voice and four instruments into one in which the seven-member cast would be backed by a full symphony orchestra.

2010 Legacies Now awarded a grant of $20,000 and the result was that Stokes, who cut his musical teeth as a seven-year-old member of the Academy’s Boy’s Choir, went to work re-arranging the music for his first opera, entitled The Vine Dressers, set in the 1880’s in the vineyards of Pelee Island on Ontario’s Lake Erie. Later that summer, the Academy’s opera program was officially launched in dramatic style with SOAP’s performance of The Vine Dressers kicking off its 2005 summer series.

Encouraged by the success of the event, and the expansion of the academy’s rich offerings to include opera, the Spirit of BC committee was recently successful in obtaining a second grant from the Province through its BC150 years funding that will be used to have Stokes compose a brand new opera with a distinct west coast flavour. Entitled Nutka, the work portrays Captain James Cook’s 1778 explorations of the west coast of Vancouver Island, and his encounters with First Nations people as the first European to set foot on what was to eventually become British Columbia.

"It’s an integral part of the history of British Columbia," says James. "As far as I know, it has never been told in this medium."

Although understated about his and the Academy’s many accomplishments, James is clearly enthusiastic about having Stokes compose an opera for and about this region, and one that will make its debut at the opening of the 2008 Kathaumixw festival.

At the same time, he knows that the growing summer audiences have come to expect great things from the Academy, particularly in the years in which Kathaumixw is staged. In 2006, by way of example, the festival featured a stirring performance of the Salish Symphony, another Stokes masterpiece that was composed for choir, orchestra, and First Nations drummers and singers, and dramatically performed in a massive rock quarry on the outskirts of town.

But if history is an indicator, the debut of Nutka will be another one of a long list of captivating performances that have earned Powell River a star on the cultural map of Canada.

Just ask one of the locals. Chances are they will tell you that even though the massive paper mill on the shoreline defined much of the region’s history, the little Academy and the strains of sweet music coming from the hills above will have a strong voice in shaping its future.