By Braden Mechley ’92
 In late July, Bruce I. Miller, longtime director of the
College Choir and Chamber Singers, died peacefully in his
sleep. He was about to begin his 29th year of service to
Holy Cross.
Bruce’s contributions to the College were many. Evidence
of the very personal impact he had—and continues to
have—on many of his students may be obtained at the
Web site bruceimiller.com, where you’ll find dozens
of reflections written by students and friends. (Look hard
enough, and you’ll even learn what his mysterious middle
initial signified!) My own contribution there suggests my
personal experience of the man, whom I knew for 15 years.
So in this space I’ll try to capture his career at
Holy Cross.
Many readers of this magazine will remember Bruce most
strongly from his annual Parents/Family Weekend concerts.
How appropriate
that his career at the College began with one, on Oct. 31,
1975. The program suited both the nation’s bicentennial
and the young maestro’s expertise: All-American, with
everything from colonial hymns and Civil War songs to early
20th-century selections. He raised eyebrows at the time with
his insistence that as a melodist, Foster was the equal of
Schubert. That was Bruce—a passionate holder of strong
convictions, and specifically a champion of American music
as worthy to stand beside the European masterworks he also
performed so well. Last March, Bruce’s beloved Chamber
Singers offered a similar program—Stephen Foster, Charles
Ives and their contemporaries—as their spring concert.
 Bruce’s second Parents Weekend found the Glee Club
officially renamed the College Choir, and performing in the
acoustically friendlier St. Joseph Memorial Chapel. The new
name and location have both lasted. And, in 1978, Bruce saw
two other, similarly permanent traditions begin for his Choir:
closing Parents Weekend concerts with a suite of Songs of
Holy Cross he compiled with Edward Judd, Jr., and singing
a “Festival of Lessons and Carols” in St. Joseph
Memorial Chapel before Christmas break.
Many exciting things lay in store for succeeding generations
of the College Choir. There would be tours—throughout
New England, to New York (City and upstate), Washington and
Florida. Travel eventually took the group abroad, to England,
Ireland and Italy—the last of those trips including
a papal audience as well as five concerts, all in January
1989. The early ’90s brought five consecutive years
with the Boston Pops at Christmastime.
Bruce’s talent for organization on a grand scale also
led him several times to combine his Holy Cross forces with
those of other ensembles (from the Worcester MasterSingers
to the combined choirs of the Consortium). Thus, he enabled
his students to perform massive works like Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony, the Verdi Requiem, Orff’s Carmina
burana and Brahms’ German
Requiem—each experience unforgettable
for both performers and audience.
To many people, however, Bruce is most fondly remembered
not as the conductor of gorgeous concerts in the chapel and
Mechanics Hall but rather as the director of countless theatrical
ventures. From 1979 to 1987 he was essential to the senior
play, presenting remarkable productions of everything from
Oklahoma! to Of
Thee I Sing. And from 1988 to 1998, he worked
with The Alternate College Theater (ACT), whose many successes
under his guidance included The Mikado, Carousel and—the
peak of his stage career—Sweeney
Todd, a shocking and
challenging show that so riveted audiences that it even sold
out on Super Bowl Sunday.
Bruce seized every chance he could find to include theatrical
music in his concerts. Remember that 1976 Parents Weekend
concert I mentioned before—the one that permanently
transferred that occasion to St. Joseph Memorial Chapel?
The program was no less than a concert version of West
Side Story, a show he’d later stage with the senior play
and again with ACT. Future concerts would offer excerpts
from all the musicals mentioned above, and many more besides.
Particularly prominent, both in concert and onstage, were
the works of his beloved Gilbert and Sullivan; no one present
will soon forget his distinctive and brilliant way with the
scores of Trial by Jury, The
Pirates of Penzance and Iolanthe.
This was also a man who could achieve miracles with much
smaller forces. He was rightly proud of his Chamber Singers,
a subset of the College Choir (16-to-20 voices in size) that
made special contributions to big concerts and also maintained
a separate rehearsal and performance schedule all its own.
In 1979, he founded the Holy Cross Wind Ensemble, which performed
a delightful and varied repertoire for years.
And, to return (as Bruce loved to do) to the theater, Bruce
directed four productions of that most intimate of shows,
The Fantasticks: one with ACT, and the others as isolated
projects, just because he believed every college student
should know the piece, which after all is about growing up.
The 1992 production took place in Crossroads, the 1994 one
in the O’Kane “Pit”; the last, Bruce’s
return to stage direction after five years away, was in March
2003, in (of all places) the Choir Room, Hogan 514. He was
so pleased with the results, and with the current talent
pool, that he encouraged the students to found a new group,
the Holy Cross Light Opera Company. (The L.O.C.’s premiere
production will take place in February 2004, in the Hogan
Ballroom.)
 Bruce’s legacy continues at the College, with the Choir
and Chamber Singers currently in the capable hands of their
interim director, John Delorey. The 2003 Family Weekend program
follows his plans, as will Lessons and Carols in December.
In spring 2004, two of his favorite pieces will be featured:
Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Five
Mystical Songs (sung at
Bruce’s first-ever Spring Concert here, in 1976) and
Mozart’s Requiem, a masterpiece he’d conducted
in four different Holy Cross “seasons”—and
now offered in his memory. Choir alums who wish to join in
singing on this occasion are encouraged to contact me (bmechley@holycross.edu)
for details.
Braden Mechley ’92 is an assistant professor in the
classics department.
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