Bruce Montgomery (entertainer)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bruce Eglinton Montgomery (born 1927) is an American composer, author, musical theater performer, painter, conductor, and director, particularly of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.

"Monty", as he is known around the Philadelphia performing community, is perhaps best known for his long tenure as director of musical activities at the University of Pennsylvania.

[edit] Biography

Montgomery served as director of the Penn Glee Club for 44 years (1956-2000), writing, directing, choreographing and conducting their shows. He published a memoir in 2005 entitled Brothers, Sing On!: My Half-Century Around The World With The Penn Glee Club through University of Pennsylvania Press, relating many of his favorite stories from his tenure as director of the Glee Club.^[1] He also helped to create the Penn Singers as a light opera company in 1971 and continues to serve as their director. In addition, he also served as director and/or music director of Mask and Wig, the University Band, Penn Players, and many other musical and theatrical groups at Penn before his retirement in 2000. His only remaining official position at Penn as of 2008 was directing the Penn Singers' spring shows.

Montgomery is also a composer and lyricist whose works have been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and many other performing groups. The music he wrote for Gilbert and Sullivan's Thespis in the 1950s, for which Sullivan's original music is mostly lost, was produced successfully by him on several occasions, including at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in 2001. Montgomery was the Artistic Director for the Gilbert & Sullivan Players of Philadelphia, a group founded by his father, James Montgomery, for over three decades until 2005. He also served as stage director for the Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Chester County in West Chester, Pennsylvania until 2005. He has both directed and performed in each of the 14 Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.

After his 1963 "Irish folk opera" Spindrift, was performed by the Penn Singers and the Penn Players, he wrote his 1964 off-Broadway show, The Amorous Flea, based on Molière's L'École des femmes (The School for Wives) is still performed occasionally. In 1972, he wrote An Orpheus Triptych for the Orpheus Club of Philadelphia, a choral setting based on poems to Orpheus.

Montgomery's paintings and sculptures are included in a number of private collections and galleries. Since 2000, he has sold his original notecards through his company, Monty, Inc. ^[2]