Born in Ocean Falls to a minister’s family in 1942, Bruce grew up in Trail and South Burnaby, graduating from Burnaby South in 1960 and UBC in 1965. 

Subsequently, he studied at Yale University, graduating with a Doctorate in 1970, met and married his life partner Connie and returned to BC and a 40 year career of post secondary teaching.  In the early ‘70s in Nanaimo, he founded the Music Department of Malaspina College, the Malaspina Choir and the Choral Programme of the Courtenay Youth Music Camp. 

In 1973 he was hired by U.Vic. where he taught until 2010.  While at UVic., he served his community as the founding President of the Vancouver Island Opera Association and conductor of the Victoria Choral Society, and several concerts with the Victoria Symphony in the 1990s. He served his UVic. Community as president of the UVic Faculty Association for three terms and the provincial faculty association (CUFA BC) for another two. His main career however was conducting the UVic Chamber Singers for 37 years, taking them on concert tours to 140 cities in 40 countries of the world, and wrote a book about these tours entitled “The Conductor is the one in Front”. 

Starting in 2000 he became involved with the homeless, volunteering for OURPLACE and with Rev. Al Tysick’s DANDELION SOCIETY, an activity he continued for 10 years after retirement. In his “spare time”, he pursues genealogy and has written a book on his mother’s family.  He also does computer layout and for the last 10 years has volunteered his services to produce the Broadmead Area Newsletter “The Bugle”. In 2020, he set up a woodshed in his garage and began building Little Free Libraries for the Victoria Placemaking Project which he donated to members of the community. As of today he has created 82. On September 22, he received a “Community Achievement Award” from the Mayor of Victoria.