Bruce Fithian was choirmaster/organist at the Church of St. Mary, Falmouth Maine from 2007 to 2022 and a life-long lover of the early music repertoire. In Europe he sang the title role in Rameau’s Dardanus at the Festival international de la chaise dieu, as well as roles in Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie with la Grande écurie et la chambre du Roy at the Théâtre de Chatelet, Paris and Les Indes galantes at the Opéra de Nice (broadcast live on French radio). Other engagements included the Chapelle Royale with Philippe Herreweghe at the Villa de Medici, Florence; Les arts florissantswith William Christie and broadcasts on the French radio (Nouvelle orchestre philharmonique under Pierre Boulez), including the world première of Aboulker’s Leçons aux étudiants américains on French television (La Grande écurie et la chambre du Roy). His recording of Musiques au temps de Philippe Auguste won the Prix audiovisuel de l’Europe.
In America he made 14 recordings as soloist with the Boston Camerata and was featured with this group at the Bank of Boston Celebrity Series (Weill’s Johnny Johnson). Other engagements included tours of Fauvel in France and the Netherlands, as well as concerts in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and Toronto.
He sang the title role of Rameau’s Pygmalion at Alice Tully Hall on the Great Performances Series with the New York Concert Royal. A noted Bach evangelist, he has sung the passions with the Dallas Bach Society, the Boston Cantata Singers, and Boston Cecilia Society. With the Cecilia Society he sang the title role of Handel’s Jephthe as well as Solomon.
His recording of lute songs by Francis Pilkington on the Centaur label (Music – Dear Solace to my Thoughts) was praised in several reviews:
“Fithian brings to these songs a keen sense of the understated passion and eloquence of the idiom” (American Record Guide)
“There actually is not much to say about this stunning release aside from the superlatives that it inspires. Fithian’s voice has a lovely honey-hued brightness to it, but it’s also a well supported, warm sound with an easy comfort in the bottom register that is welcome in this repertoire. He spins lines with admirable elegance and tapers ends of phrases most becomingly.” (Journal of Singing).
He sang at the Boston early Music Festival under Rodger Norrington (Mozart’s Idomeneo) and Andrew Parrott (Monteverdi Mass).
Bruce Fithian is Professor Emeritus, of the Osher School of Music at the University of Southern Maine, where he taught studio voice, music history, theory, vocal literature and diction. He earned degrees in composition from the New England Conservatory (BM), where he studied with Donald Martino, Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt; the University of Southampton, England where he studied with Alexander Goehr, and Brandeis University (MFA in musical composition under Seymour Shifrin). He received a Leonard Bernstein fellowship in composition at the Berkshire School of Music at Tanglewood and a $3,000 prize from the Massachusetts Arts and Humanities Foundation for his Cantata. His instrumental music includes works for piano; Concertante for violin, horn, piano and orchestra, Suite for String Quartet and Quintet for violin, clarinet, horn, cello and piano.
His vocal music includes Mists of Childhood for mezzo soprano and orchestra, The Hour-Glass – chamber opera based on the play by W. B. Yeats, Songs of Innocence and Experience – oratorio for chorus, soloists and 16 instruments, Canticle of the Sun – choral work for mixed chorus, soprano, tenor, baritone soloists and 14 instruments – based on the poem by Saint Francis of Assisi, My Splendors are Menagerie – song cycle of twenty-four songs based on the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Vizamrun Shirin for chorus and orchestra, Kinderlieder for soprano, flute, viola, harp, percussion and piano, No More Kissing – AIDS Everywhere, Cum Splendor Lunae, Look not in my Eyes and O Virtus Sapientiae for soprano and ensemble.
Bruce Fithian and the Rev. Canon James Dalton-Thompson founded the Saint Mary Schola in 2007 in support of a professional early music ensemble presenting masterworks of the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque eras.