
Catherine Moore
Adjunct Professor: Music Technology & Digital Media
B.A. (Bishop's), Ph.D. (Liverpool)
EmailBiographical Note
A graduate of Bishop’s University, Canada (Honours BA, English Literature) and the Conservatoire de musique in Montreal (Organ Performance), Dr. Moore completed her PhD in music at The University of Liverpool, England where her doctoral dissertation explored the life and music of the 17th-century Italian composer and violinist Michelangelo Rossi. Her PhD dissertation, which includes computer analysis of keyboard temperaments and transcriptions of some of Rossi's most startling chromatic madrigals, was published as a book by Garland. She has been a music critic since 1990 for American Record Guide. Recent academic conference papers include: "Second Fiddle: Record Labels in the Time of Participatory Audiences, User-Generated Distribution, and Shared Authority" (University of Newcastle, UK); and "Here and Now: Preserving Occasional Music in the Age of Digital On-Demand" (Royal Academy of Music, UK).
In the Faculty of Music, Dr. Moore teaches about music entrepreneurship and digital media distribution. In both courses, the emphasis is on rapid change in digital and international business -- always with a focus on the ways that cultural and aesthetic expertise is required in business decisions. Her research areas include new ways to measure digital media content and the sustainability of cities through multi-national music initiatives.
Professor Moore is regularly quoted in the media about the music industry. Recent examples include Financial Post Magazine (on Drake's business strategies); SiriusXM Knowledge@Wharton (about Sprint's investment in Tidal); The New York Times (about unconventional methods to launch albums); CTV News (on the Led Zeppelin copyright infringement jury verdict), The Globe and Mail (advice to start-ups; RFID cashless wristbands at music festivals), The Ringer (listening habits when there's unlimited choice), Epoca, in Brazil (how artists differentiate in the digital marketplace), and Time (future of the album format).
As a consultant in 1997, Catherine Moore created and implemented a forward-looking methodology to evaluate recorded music masters. The method takes into account current accounting practices and provides a framework for estimating the future earning potential of recorded music masters as intangible assets. In 2001, two years before the launch of the Apple iTunes store, the method was updated to begin to include digital value. In 2010 and again in 2015 it was further modified, and the method has proved valid for continued assessment of future value when applied to varied, international, and multi-media exploitation of recorded masters.
Dr. Moore taught at New York University from 1995 to 2016, and directed the Music Business Program for many years before returning to her home in Canada. While at NYU, she created courses on topics such as forecasting, price strategy, strategic marketing, A&R music evaluation, and international expansion.
Catherine Moore started in the music business managing a retail store in Liverpool, England. Since then, she has been sales manager for Harmonia Mundi Records in London, international marketing manager for Nimbus Records at their Welsh headquarters, and a marketing director (jazz and classical music) for A&M Records in New York. While in New York in the late 1980s, she served on the local N.A.R.A.S. Board of Governors and on the Classical Screening Committee for the Grammy® Awards. She was an expert witness in a precedent-setting legal case brought by US federal regulators about joint ventures and price/advertising manipulation in the recorded music business.