Roger Flury

Roger Flury was born in Brixton, South London and first became seriously involved in music as Head Chorister at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster and as a treble soloist at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Passionate about the role of music in libraries, he worked for a variety of organisations ranging from Westminster City Libraries (London) to the National Library of New Zealand (Wellington). For much of his professional library career he has been closely associated with the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres (IAML), serving the organisation as Secretary General President and Historian. In 2023 he was awarded Honorary Membership of the association.

In addition to his work in libraries, Roger was co-founder of Canterbury Opera (now Opera New Zealand); Artistic Director of Academy Opera; broadcaster of over 100 programmes for Radio New Zealand; author of the award-winning Pietro Mascagni, a bio-bibliography (Greenwood Press, 2001) and Giacomo Puccini, a discography (Scarecrow Press, 2012); co-editor of The Songs of Arturo Toscanini (Subito Music, 2010); and co-founder of David Vine Music, a publisher of original compositions, new editions and keyboard realizations. He has also contributed articles and reviews to journals, newspapers and concert programmes in New Zealand and overseas. On four occasions he was a preliminary judge for New Zealand’s premier singing competition, the Mobil (now Lexus) Song Quest.

Roger has recently edited and annotated the autobiography of conductor Warwick Braithwaite (Matador, 2023) and contributed prefaces for orchestral scores by Mascagni and Puccini published in Germany by Musikproduktion Höflich. in collaboration with David Vine and Subito Music in New York, he is working on the first publication of orchestral works of Arturo Toscanini.