Dutch-born conductor Arthur Arnold is the co-founder and Artistic Director of the Pacific Region International Summer Music Association (PRISMA Festival & Academy) on Canada’s west coast. This annual event attracts world-renowned musicians and international music students from top universities, drawing over 5,000 concertgoers to daily musical events. Arnold also serves as the Music Director and conductor of the PRISMA Festival Orchestra, the premier ensemble at the festival.

Since 2016, Arthur Arnold has led a pioneering musical collaboration with the Tla’amin Nation. Partnering with the Tla’amin Singers and Drummers, the PRISMA Festival Orchestra annually performs traditional Tla’amin songs, featuring solo performances by the Nation’s Singers and Drummers accompanied by a symphony orchestra—a meaningful fusion of cultures. This initiative resulted in an invitation from the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) to the Tla’amin Nation and Arthur Arnold to perform these culturally significant songs with the VSO during their Path Forward reconciliation concert in 2024.

From January 2012 until his resignation in March 2022, Arnold served as the Music Director of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra (MSO). He resigned in protest of the war in Ukraine and the regime responsible, taking a principled stand against the conflict—the only choice to avoid jeopardizing his beloved MSO. His artistic collaboration with the MSO began in 2004 with concerts in the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, evolving into a long and fruitful partnership, frequently touring and being featured at international festivals.

Arnold is the driving force behind The Mosolov Project, discovering lost manuscripts of the repressed composer Alexander Mosolov in Russian libraries. He performed and recorded Mosolov’s Fifth Symphony (1965) and Harp Concerto (1939) in the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. The resulting CD, released by Naxos, received the second prize in the prestigious Russian competition Pure Sound. For more information and links to CD reviews, visit The Mosolov Project.

Dedicated to music education, Arnold has mentored over 25 upcoming conductors at the PRISMA Festival and through conducting masterclasses with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra.

Arnold served as the Music Director of the Symphony Orchestra Academy of the Pacific from 2004 to 2011 and as Principal Guest Conductor of the Seoul National Symphony Orchestra in South Korea from 1997 to 2001. As a guest conductor, he has collaborated with orchestras and festivals throughout Europe, Canada, the USA, and Asia.

Arnold studied conducting with Anton Kersjes and Hans Vonk and received additional training from Marcello Viotti, Jean Fournet, and Graeme Jenkins. He studied at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy with Myung-Whun Chung and Gianluigi Gelmetti, and with Jorma Panula and Diego Masson in international masterclasses.

Arthur and his wife Kim divide their time between the rugged West Coast of Canada and The Netherlands. In Canada, they enjoy hiking, sea kayaking, and paddleboarding. In 2020, Arthur developed a passion for sheep and wool, spinning, and knitting, specializing in quality wool socks knitted on a vintage sock knitting machine. For more details, visit www.maestrosocks.ca. In Europe, they embark on adventurous road trips to different orchestras, camping in a roof tent on their Volkswagen van. Kim writes about their travels in her blog, www.WakingUpOnTheRoof.com.