White Rock orchestra to be Canada’s first ‘inclusive’ ensemble

White Rock orchestra to be Canada’s first ‘inclusive’ ensemble

Published 9:00 am Wednesday, July 22, 2026

White Rock City Orchestra is on its way to becoming the first ‘inclusive’ orchestra in Canada.

That’s according to artistic director Bruce Petherick, who appeared before city council July 13 to share some of the history and accomplishments of the ensemble – and also some of its current challenges.

“Some of you who know me will recognize why inclusion is really important for me,” Petherick – who is autistic – told council.

He said he divides his day between being an advocate for those with autism and being a professional musician, but he has also been working on making the orchestra more inclusive altogether.

“We have people with mobility issues,” he said.

“One of our violinists is severely visually impaired, and that involves me getting the music that she needs to play, I need to put it into a special program, she gets it converted, and then she has a braille reader to play. This normally costs $250 per page – I do it for nothing (because) we can’t have a barrier like that for a musician.”

He added there are also a lot of neuro-divergent members in the orchestra.

“I could go on and on about the difficulty neuro-divergent people have in a regular orchestra – there’s a whole bunch of things we kind of need, but because I’m running it, I can sort of manage that.”

Petherick said that likely by September or October the orchestra will be officially announcing it is the first inclusive orchestra in the country.

That will include “adaptive instruments,” he noted, adding that he has many connections within the disability music community working with people that need them.

“If you don’t know what an adaptive instrument is – let’s say it’s a flute, there’s a design modification to the flute that allows somebody with a mobility issue (to play it). Especially with lowering tension, you can get a flute that’s built into something that relaxes around the neck and comes around the back.

“This is still a pretty new thing around the world, … but I’m encouraging anybody who has an adaptive instrument in Vancouver to come and avail themselves of us.”

Although the history of the current orchestra can be traced back to the early 1970s and the Silver Comets, an ensemble for retired people based at the Kent Street Activity Centre, Petherick noted, however, that there were earlier community orchestras as far back as the the 1920s and the 1930s – “so let’s say we’ve been around for 100 years.”

As the ensemble broadened its to include younger members and music students, it was renamed the White Rock Community Orchestra in the 1980s, and stayed that – under the direction of a succession of professional musicians – until 2020, when it was rebranded the White Rock City Orchestra.

“The idea behind that – and that predates my involvement in the orchestra – was that there is a negative connotation to the idea of a community orchestra. I disagree, but I get the point. We are part of the city, part of the city’s cultural landscape.”

Petherick said his own involvement in the orchestra dates back to the November 2024 concert at for which Vancouver jazz artist Dee Daniels was a special guest. Held at Peace Portal Alliance Church in South Surrey, it represented a high-water mark for audience attendance in recent years, with some 650 attendees.

With a subsequent move to St. Mark’s Anglican Church in Ocean Park as a permanent venue (which has a maximum capacity of 250 people) audience sizes have shrunk to an average of around 200, although the last Christmas show in 2025 drew in some 485 people over two nights, Petherick said.

“We have severe limitations with performance (spaces) in this area,” he added.

“We are kind of limited to working in churches and that has some problems, especially around Christmastime. Many members of the orchestra are not comfortable performing in a church for various reasons. So looking at a venue in White Rock and South Surrey that could handle 500 people would be advantageous for us.”

“We’ve hit the limit – we can’t go past 250. It’s relatively easy for me to get 250 people without doing too much work, but (the problem is) we can’t handle the overflow.”

The orchestra is also limited in rehearsal space and storage space, Petherick said.

Although the orchestra now rehearses in a room at the Centennial Arena complex, following council moving its meetings to the Gallery Room of White Rock Community Centre, storage remains a challenge, he said.

“We desperately need more storage space. At the moment the entire music library is in my living room – and the tympani, we were going to sell them, but now we need them.”