BANGOR – This past winter, Xiao-Lu Li, conductor of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, arrived early at the State House in Augusta. He was ready to talk business. Namely, the business of the arts.

“We’ve got the greatest opportunity here,” Li told Gov. John Baldacci during a meeting in the governor’s chambers. “We’ve got to attract people to our state.”

Li knows plenty about opportunity. He moved to the United States from China 21 years ago, started a business consulting firm in San Francisco, and now conducts the Bangor Symphony, the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra in New London, and the China National Symphony Orchestra.

He didn’t come to Augusta in search of funding – the symphony’s membership is up when many orchestras across the country have experienced plunging ticket sales and a decline in donations.

When Li accepted the post in Bangor last January, he was thrilled with the city’s commitment to the symphony, the residents’ hospitality and the quality of life in Maine. But Li, a consummate businessman, believed that something was missing – jobs, and the strong economic climate needed to foster those jobs – a point he stressed during his meeting with the governor.

Over the years, manufacturing layoffs have rocked Maine, and the state’s youth have left en masse in search of greater employment opportunities. In recent years, state and local leaders have shifted their focus from resource-based industry to the creative economy. It is a term that encompasses museums, galleries, design firms, individual artists and musicians, and such institutions as the Bangor Symphony and the National Folk Festival.

These endeavors not only make Maine a great place to live, the governor says, they also provide a substantial economic spinoff. It is Baldacci’s hope that with people like Li in his corner – people who understand with one foot in the business world and the other in the arts -the creative economy will help keep young, talented natives in Maine and lure qualified imports to areas where culture thrives.

“The enthusiasm you have … to help our state and to help our communities, that’s the kind of effort that we’re going to need,” Baldacci told Li. “You got my motor going.”

The BSO’s motor has been going for some time. It is the oldest continuously running community orchestra in the nation and one of the anchors in the city’s creative network. Established in 1896, several years after the city’s lumber boom fell into decline, the symphony has seen the rise and fall of Bangor’s downtown district and its gradual rebirth in recent years. It has been a constant, a driving force in the city’s cultural identity.

The lumber boom is over. It’s not coming back. But there’s potential for a new boom – one that has to do with culture, not conifers.

Enter the National Folk Festival, the new kid on the block that drew more than 80,000 people and their wallets to the city last summer.

Though the National is in year two of its three-year stay in town, local organizers plan to continue to hold an annual festival after the National moves on. This new festival has the potential to become another anchor in the city, along with such institutions as the symphony, Penobscot Theatre Company, the Maine Discovery Museum and the University of Maine Museum of Art.

The transition won’t happen overnight, however. Shops started closing in Bangor’s downtown in the mid-1970s as their owners hit retirement age. Several years later, the Bangor Mall opened on the outskirts of town, causing even more Main Street merchants to close their doors. In recent years, new retailers and restaurateurs have seen the potential downtown, but the city still has its share of vacant storefronts, and a three-day festival – focused mainly on the waterfront – hasn’t changed that.

“We were expecting really great things,” said Rick Schweikert, who owns The Grasshopper Shop in West Market Square, “but we didn’t really do more business. It was clear that people came to the festival for the music and the food.”

Still, the Folk Festival had intangible benefits. It started a momentum among local merchants, artists and cultural organizers, especially those who make their home in the heart of the city. When asked if the festival was good for Bangor, Schweikert answered unequivocally.

“Definitely. Without any doubt whatsoever,” he said. “A strong downtown helps the mind-set of all of Bangor. All of this cultural stuff is the right way to go. We can’t compete with the mall, but we can be different and have arts and theater. It’s taken its time, but it’s coming, and the Folk Festival fits into that.”

And when people come downtown to see a play, to hear a concert, or to view an exhibit, they often linger. They have dinner beforehand. If they’re running a little early, they may drop into a boutique and pick up a gift or an outfit. Afterward, they may stop for a drink at the wine bar or a pub. The box office draw is just a small part of the economic impact that the arts can have.

“I think the more we can help people understand this investment in the arts can help provide jobs, the better off we are,” said John Rohman, National Folk Festival chairman and a Bangor city councilor. “It’s not just the arts, but the spinoff of the arts.”

In 2000, the New England Council released a report on the role of arts and culture in New England’s economy. The study found that in Maine, 14,000 people – 2.2 percent of the state’s work force – were employed in the “creative cluster,” a term that encompasses applied, performing and visual arts, media, heritage such as museums and the like, literary arts and arts education.

“When we talk about the youth leaving Maine, we’re going to talk about the importance of the arts – in having the arts, but also in seeing that there are job opportunities [in the creative sector] here,” Baldacci said. “These are parts of the creative economy that we need to focus on.”

Though the employment percentage seems small, the economic impact was large – in midcoast Maine, arts and art-related industries accounted for $21.8 million in spending in 2000, according to a study released by Americans for the Arts, a national arts advocacy group.