The Canadian musical scene just lost one of its most active philanthropists, as Roger D. Moore passed away last week. Having made his fortune in the computer industry, Roger decided to spend the rest of his life funding new work for the concert stage and theatre. The list of works he has commissioned is long indeed, and I am personally thankful to Roger for sponsoring Tapestry’s Composer/Librettist Laboratory for over a decade.
Many who live and work in Toronto noticed Roger riding his bike to concerts throughout the GTA. He was probably the most cultured person in town, and routinely saw between two and four performances a day, many of which he funded. He was the type of person that anyone would feel comfortable talking to, and I remember many conversations about the early days of both the computer industry and Toronto’s opera scene. He was highly trusted by both boards and performing artists, and at Tapestry he frequently advised both.
In computer science, Roger’s company I.P. Sharp Associates built the packet-switching protocols of IPSANET, one of the ancestors of the modern internet and one of the first packet-switching frameworks that allowed for the development of email.
One of Roger’s final projects was the cataloging of COC productions from 1950 to 2019.
Photo above is courtesy of Tapestry Opera. I’ll add more links as they become available.
Update: For those interested in attending the visitation, it will be from 2-4pm today at the G.H. Hogle Funeral Home, 63 Mimico Avenue in Etobicoke.
Here’s a tribute to Roger put together by Stacie Dunlop last year:
