Highly respected artistic leader championed thousands of Canadian artists from across Canada

May 25, 2022 – OTTAWA, CANADA – After a long and highly successful career in the performing arts, Heather Moore, Executive Producer of the National Creation Fund, will retire from the National Arts Centre on June 3, 2022.

“Heather Moore has had a profound impact on the National Arts Centre, and on thousands of artists nationwide,” said NAC President and CEO Christopher Deacon. “On behalf of the NAC Board of Trustees, our artistic leadership and the management team, I want to offer our deepest thanks for her passion and tireless dedication to the NAC and the performing arts in Canada.  Heather leaves a legacy for Canadian artists whose careers have flourished as a result of her incredible work over more than two decades.”

Since its launch in 2017, Heather has been the founding Executive Producer of the NAC’s National Creation Fund. Fueled entirely by private donors, the Fund has paved the way for a new model for artistic creation in Canada by making substantial investments in ambitious new Canadian works at the development stage. Heather was deeply involved in the creation of the Fund, and has been a passionate advocate of its mandate to fill the “creation gap” by giving artists the time, space and resources they need to create great work.

Under her leadership, the National Creation Fund has invested more than $10 million in 68 major new works, many of which have enjoyed successful premieres and subsequent runs on Canadian and international stages. Those works include Revisor (Kidd Pivot, Vancouver), Unikaaqtuat (The 7 Fingers, Montreal, Taqqut Productions, Iqaluit and Artcirq, Igloolik), Violence (Infrarouge, Montreal) and Multitudes (Feist, Toronto), to name just a few. In the coming year, more projects that received a Fund investment will premiere, including Tell Tale Harbour (Confederation Centre of the Arts, Charlottetown), Prison Dancer (Citadel Theatre, Edmonton), Fall on Your Knees (NAC and Vita Brevis Arts), and Mahabharata (Why Not Theatre, Toronto), among many others. 

Before leading the National Creation Fund, Heather was the Executive Producer of the NAC’s biennial, multidisciplinary Scene festivals that showcased more than 5,000 artists from all regions of Canada. She began with Alberta Scene (2005), then went on to lead Quebec Scene (2007), BC Scene (2009), Prairie Scene (2011), Northern Scene (2013) and Ontario Scene (2015), culminating with Canada Scene (2017), the largest gathering of artists held during Canada’s sesquicentennial. Each festival featured diverse emerging and established artists, and was filled with highly creative programming that took place at the NAC and at venues throughout the National Capital Region. The Scenes helped build new audiences for Canadian artists and introduced them to key presenters, leading to new bookings at prestigious venues and festivals around the world.

“It has been a privilege to work with so many Canadian artists from literally coast to coast to coast,” said Heather.  “I have always felt I had the best job in the country, one that allowed me to learn so much about our regions and peoples through artists’ stories.  I am proud to have played a leadership role in the NAC’s vision to be a truly national organization, in collaboration with the passionate and dedicated teams there.   I look forward to seeing the work that the National Creation Fund is supporting appear on stages across the country and around the world.”

Heather Moore began at the NAC in 1994 as Senior Marketing Officer for the NAC Orchestra, and in 1998 became the Director of the NAC’s new Marketing Department, which achieved record subscription sales and launched the innovative Live Rush student ticket program under her leadership.

Over the past year, Heather has led the development of the NAC’s professional development program, helping the organization achieve its strategic goal to create new opportunities for skills development in the performing arts and the advancement of IBPoC arts professionals. As it has been throughout her career, her leadership of this important initiative has centered on partnerships and ensuring that the NAC will serve a diversity of voices and perspectives.

Heather Moore has been an integral part of the Senior Management team, helping to chart the NAC’s overall direction. She was one of the authors of the NAC’s first-ever strategic plan, Restoring the Vision (2001), which set the NAC on the road to playing a greater national role. She followed that by co-authoring subsequent strategic plans — Performing for Canadians (2008) and Canada Is Our Stage (2015) — and was involved in developing the NAC’s current strategic plan, The Next Act (2020). She has also been a crucial member of the financial planning committee that has helped guide the NAC’s overall financial direction and strategy.

A national search for a new Artistic Producer for the National Creation Fund is currently underway. 

ABOUT THE NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE

The National Arts Centre is Canada’s bilingual, multi-disciplinary home for the performing arts. The NAC presents, creates, produces, and co-produces performing arts programming in various streams — the NAC Orchestra, Dance, English Theatre in collaboration with Black Theatre Workshop, French Theatre, Indigenous Theatre, and Popular Music and Variety — and nurtures the next generation of audiences and artists from across Canada. The NAC is located in the National Capital Region on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe. 

ABOUT THE NATIONAL CREATION FUND 

Now in its fifth year and fuelled entirely by generous donors from across the country, the National Creation Fund invests in the development of compelling and ambitious new Canadian works in theatre, dance, music and interdisciplinary performing arts.  Since opening in 2017, the Fund has invested more than $10 million in 68 projects led by artists from across the country.  For more information on the National Creation Fund and the projects it supports, visit: nac-cna.ca/en/creationfund.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Mary Gordon
Senior Advisor, Corporate Communications
National Arts Centre
Mary.gordon@nac-cna.ca
613-601-3877