After 29 remarkable years of service to Taft, faculty member Bruce Fifer has announced his retirement at the end of the 2024-25 academic year. Known for his passion for the performing arts, dedication to teaching, and extraordinary ability to bring voices together in harmony, Fifer has been a true leader in Taft’s arts department.

“Bruce has had a wonderful impact on choral music—and the arts overall—at Taft over the last three decades,” said Head of School Peter Becker ’95. “He is well-loved by thousands of Tafties throughout the world for his joyful presence, love of the arts, and his dedication to his Taft students and colleagues. As a former member of Collegium, I am very grateful that Chris Shepherd introduced me to Bruce almost 30 years ago on the eve of his start at Taft and that I have gotten to work with him these last two years and see how choral music has flourished under his leadership.”

Since joining Taft in 1996, Fifer has led Collegium Musicum, Taft’s showcase choir, to new heights while fostering a love of music that transcends the concert hall. Under his direction, the choir has performed concerts in New York City, as well as San Francisco, Spain, China, France, and Italy, a country and culture so dear to his heart that, along with his wife Helena and former Taft faculty member Ann Romano, he created an immersive residential program with Collegium called “Living the Arts in Italy.” Fifer also inaugurated Taft’s Music for a While performing artist series, the Rockwell Visiting Artist program, an endowed visiting professional artist residency, and the Kilbourne Grant program, an endowed scholarship program that enables Taft students to further their artistic education in the summer. 

“Although I will be retiring from Taft, I’ll still be living on campus with Helena, who will continue to teach and direct,” Fifer said. “I am excited about continuing to support the arts in our immediate community and the community at large.”

Beyond his accomplishments, Fifer’s true legacy lies in the connections he’s made with Taft students.

“Bruce taught us to take art seriously—one of his best-loved Collegium mantras was ‘song is LIFE!’” remembers Tom Robertshaw ’14. “When he’d lift his hands at the music stand and scan each face for attentive eyeballs, when just before he’d signal us to breathe in and break the silence of the classroom or cathedral or Italian tour bus, he’d smile with the joy that only comes from making something beautiful with others. In those moments, I knew I was performing under the leadership not only of a great teacher, but a great artist, too. Happy retirement, dearest man. God only knows the far and grateful reaches of your echo.”

Prior to joining the faculty at Taft, Fifer worked in New York at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine for 22 years, where he was involved in the Cathedral’s extensive arts program in various ways: as a singer, choral contractor, arts administrator, and Director of Music. While there, he helped create and produce projects and events such as St. Francis Day, Boar’s Head Festival, Paul Winter’s Carnival and Solstice concerts, a staged version of Bach’s St. John Passion, annual performances of the Messiah, and many services and concerts for large audiences. Prior to his time at the Cathedral, he was a freelance baritone with more than 30 opera roles in his repertoire, singing solos with most of the major orchestras, including the Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Washington Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, and the New York Philharmonic. His extensive discography includes a recording of the baritone solos in Leonard Bernstein’s Dybbuk Suite with Maestro Bernstein conducting. A graduate of Westminster Choir College, Fifer has devoted his life to the pursuit of fine choral music and, in so doing, has worked with some of the great choral conductors of our time: Robert Shaw, Roger Wagner, Gregg Smith, Robert De Cormier, Norman Luboff, Richard Westenburg, and Abraham Kaplan. A founder of the Philadelphia Singers, he was also instrumental in starting Chorus America. 

With more than 60 years of experience in singing and choral contracting, Fifer has performed and recorded with virtually every vocal ensemble in the New York metropolitan area, including Musica Sacra, Waverly Consort, Ensemble for Early Music, New York Choral Artists, Gregg Smith Singers, Camerata Singers, Men of Song Enterprises, Robert Shaw Festival Singers, the Philadelphia Singers, The New York Vocal Arts Ensemble, and Alice Parker’s Melodious Accord, an organization he helped found. 

He can be heard on the soundtracks of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Mulan. He has also provided backup vocals for James Taylor, Art Garfunkel, Paul Winter, Tom Hulce, and Pete Seeger. Fifer is a member of the Connecticut Music Educators Association, American Choral Directors Association, Chorus America, Screen Actors Guild, and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. 

“I’ve always felt there was something beautiful and even magical about Bruce,” said Head of School Emeritus Willy MacMullen ’78, “so it’s difficult to capture all he has been for Taft. When you combine excellence and humility in a teacher, it looks like Bruce. That he has led one of the finest secondary school choir programs is obvious, but that hardly gets at all he has done: attract students of all backgrounds and abilities to Collegium; employ the pedagogy needed to inspire and educate a class of 40; perform concerts in locations as varied as Lincoln Lobby to St. John the Divine in New York and the Basilica di San Marco in Venice; and carry the Taft name across the nation and Europe. It's specifically because of Bruce that many students applied to Taft. He has been the face of Taft arts for decades.”

“But as the faculty will share, Bruce has always been so much more,” MacMullen continued. “He has the rarest spirit—loving, loyal, empathic, warm, humorous—and it seems that he was at the center of some of our most potent moments as a school, moments of joy, moments of grief. This is the man who could lead us in a raucous ‘Happy Birthday’ at a faculty party and comfort us with ‘Amazing Grace’ when we mourned the death of a colleague. There’s a faith and optimism and cheer in Bruce that for me was always bracing, and I suspect I am just one of many who found that a conversation with him, in the office or dining hall or sideline, made me a better and happier person.”

During the 2025 Alumni Weekend, there will be a Music for a While concert followed by a reception honoring Bruce.