Mavor Moore

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James Mavor Moore (born March 8, 1919 in Toronto , † December 18, 2006 in Victoria , British Columbia ) was a Canadian author, librettist, composer, music critic and educator, director and producer.

The son of an Anglican theologian and the actress Dora Mavor Moore performed puppet shows with his siblings in front of neighborhood children as a child and wrote a play at the age of twelve, which his mother put on at the Eaton Girls Dramatic Club. At the age of fourteen he appeared on a private radio station, later with the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, the forerunner of the CBC , where he was already twenty-two years old as a producer. While studying at the University of Toronto until 1941, he was a member of the University College Players' Guild and theater critic of the university newspaper The Varity . He also took composition lessons from Gladys Willan and John Weinzweig and composed songs, including based on poems by William Blake .

During World War II Moore was an officer for psychological warfare with the Canadian Army Intelligence, 1944-1945 he worked as a producer for the CBC International Services. He also wrote and produced radio documentaries for the United Nations , three of which were awarded the Peabody Award . From 1946 he worked as a manager, producer, author and actor for the New Play Society founded by his mother, for whose annual satirical revue Spring Thaw he was responsible as producer and director from 1948 to 1965.

From 1952 to 1954 Moore was chief producer of the television of the CBC, where he founded the CBC National News , later The National . From 1955 to 1960 he was a television producer at the United Nations, and from 1958 to 1960 he was a critic for Telegram magazine ; He has also been involved with the Crest Theater, the Stratford Festival and the Canadian Opera Company. In 1964 he was founding director of the Charlottetown Festival, which he directed until 1968, and in 1965 he became the founding director general of the St. Lawrence Center for the Arts, which he directed until 1970.

From 1970 until his retirement in 1984, Moore taught at York University , where he gave interdisciplinary courses in the fields of art, politics and economics. From 1984 he taught at the University of Victoria , from 1986 at the University of Lethbridge . He was also President of the Jeunesses musicales du Canada and Director of the Canadian Music Council from 1985 to 1987 and published weekly columns in Globe and Mail magazine between 1984 and 1989 . From 1996 to 1998 he served on the board of directors of the British Columbia Arts Council.

In total, Moore wrote more than one hundred musical theater works for the stage, radio and television, including the music and libretto for six musicals and three opera librettos. His musical The Best of All Possible Worlds or The Optimist , based on Voltaire's Candide , his adaptation of Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town as The Hero of Mariposa or Sunshine Town and the musical A Christmas Carol based on the story by were particularly successful Charles Dickens .

As a director, he directed the Canadian Opera Company include the operas The Love for Three Oranges by Sergei Prokofiev (1959), A Night in Venice by Johann Strauss , The Bartered Bride by Bedrich Smetana (1961) and Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on . He wrote libretti for Harry Somers ' Louis Riel , 1967, with Jacques Languirand , John Fenwick's Johnny Belinda , Harry Freedmans Silents! and Abracadabra , Johnny Burkes Fauntleroy , Gregory Levin's Ghost Dance (1985), and Louis Applebaums Erewhon .

For his extensive work for musical theater in Canada, Moore has received numerous awards, including honorary doctorates from several universities, the Centennial Medal (1967), the Queen's Medal (1977) and the Molson Prize (1986). In 1973 he became an officer, in 1988 Companion of the Order of Canada , and in 1999 a member of the Order of British Columbia . In 1994 he published an autobiography entitled Reinventing Myself .

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personal data
SURNAME Moore, Mavor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Moore, James Mavor (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian author, librettist, composer, music critic and educator, director and producer
DATE OF BIRTH March 8, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Toronto
DATE OF DEATH December 18, 2006
Place of death Victoria , British Columbia