Mr. Sutherland has been a professional musician since 1972. He began his career as a member of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, later moving to Toronto to play trumpet with the Canadian Opera Company. While in Toronto he co-founded the Hannaford Street Silver Band and was very active in the recording and performing community. In August 1993 he accepted a position in the Music Library of the Metropolitan Opera. He retired from the position of Chief Librarian after having been with the company for 27 years and is excited to be a member of the Board of Directors of Alison Cook Beatty Dance.

Mr. Sutherland has served 3 terms as President of MOLA: An Association of Performance Librarians, organizing for which he filed the Articles of Incorporation and served as Chair of the Finance and Policy Committees between and after his terms as President. As Chief Librarian of the Metropolitan Opera, he welcomed professional colleagues from as far away as Japan and Austria who indicated a desire to work with him as well as aspiring younger individuals who indicated a desire for in-depth instruction.

Mr. Sutherland has been a moderator, panelist, and instructor at numerous MOLA conferences has been a guest speaker at Cornell and Columbia Universities as well as the Juilliard School, the Wagner Society of Great Britain, Wagner Society of New York, The Association of British Orchestras’ Music Librarians and Music Publishers Association, International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres and the Ontario Federation of Symphony Orchestras. In 2016 he was a guest speaker at the Music Performance Art and Neuroscience in Dialogue symposium in Tübingen, Germany.

He has been featured in interviews by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and interviews and articles have been published in books by Emerald Publishing (2022), Canadian Association of Music Libraries (2018), Rowman and Littlefield (2016), International Association of Music Libraries, and Archives (2013), Scarecrow Press (2012), Meredith Music Publications (2012).