BRUCE BORTON’S RETIREMENT CONCERT AT BU

Since his arrival in Binghamton nearly thirty years ago, Dr. Bruce Borton has played an enormous role in shaping the lives of musicians, conductors, and music educators across the community. On Saturday, April 1st, at 3pm, he takes his final bow as conductor of the University Chorus.

Borton’s office is small but inviting, tucked away in an obscure corner of the Fine Arts Building on the BU Campus. He shares the space with a digital piano and a bookshelf stocked with decades’ worth of choral songbooks. The distant echo of students practicing vocal exercises can be heard, even through the closed office door.

“Working with the students is fun for me because it keeps me young,” Borton explains. “Although our music program isn’t very large, we have a lot of people that come from virtually every department that come sing with us. They’re here in the department taking classes, taking lessons in music because they want to do something that’s different from their major that’s interesting for them, that they don’t necessarily feel like they have to make a career out of.”

Borton moved to Binghamton from Carrollton, Georgia, in 1988. Prior to that, he spent 14 seasons as a singer and conducting assistant in the Atlanta Symphony Chorus under the late Robert Shaw - a world-renowned conductor known as the dean of American chorale. During his lifetime, Shaw won 14 Grammys and was the first conductor to ever be awarded with a Guggenheim Fellowship. “The chance to work with [Shaw] was a life experience that I wouldn’t have passed up for anything,” Borton says. “He retired in 1988, the same year that a position opened up here in Binghamton. Luckily, they hired me, and here I am.”

As the Director of Choral Activities at BU, Borton has directed all three of the University’s choral groups: the Symphony Chorus, the University Chorus, and the Harpur Chorale and Women’s Chorus. He is also actively involved with the musical community in the Triple Cities area: as a member of the board of directors of the Tri-Cities Opera (from 1998 to 2004); serving as a church musician; and as the artistic director of the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton, a not-for-profit a cappella chamber choir.

The University Chorus is a particularly unique group because auditions are open to virtually everyone in Binghamton: students, faculty, and community members. It has 125 to 150 singers, accompanied by an orchestra - well suited for the big sounds of monumental pieces from the likes of Brahms and Mozart. Those who make it through auditions join a choral tradition dating back more than thirty years, one that includes a handful who are part of its original legacy - having sung Handel’s Messiah in the chorus’s inaugural performance in 1971.

While a good singing voice is an obvious prerequisite for joining the University Chorus, an advanced background in music theory isn’t. That’s where Borton’s experience as a seasoned conductor comes in. “As a director, you have to teach so you don’t bore the people who read well and have extensive experience singing in a chorus, and guide the people who are just learning how to sight-read or sing in a big group. It’s an interesting experience, and a vastly rewarding one.”

For his last performance as part of Binghamton University, Borton goes back to his roots. The University Chorus performs two pieces for its April concert; both hold significant personal meaning to Borton. The first is Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem, a seven-movement piece composed in the late 1800s based on the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead. The piece was Borton’s first introduction to classical choral music in high school, where he sang in the school chorus.

“It’s a special time, so I thought it’d be fun to go back to the piece I’d started with. It’s one of my personal favorites. My wife is very happy about it.” As it turns out, Borton found two life-long loves through high school chorus: classical choral music and his wife, Nanette. “We did Oklahoma; I was Curly and she was Laurey.” (Nanette now sings in the University Chorus.) The second piece, a Mass composed by Joseph Haydn, is to be conducted by Borton’s graduate student as his thesis concert. Members of the Binghamton Community Orchestra, an organization of dedicated community musicians, will be providing the orchestral accompaniment for the concert.

Borton has mixed feelings about his final performance with the University Chorus. “I’ve enjoyed being here, I love doing what I do, but I’m ready to move on to another stage. I’m excited to see where my successor will take the program.” But what matters most to Borton in any performance, is leaving an impression on the audience. “When I go to a concert, I am always looking for something that is challenging and interesting, and I go away fulfilled. I want our audiences to feel the same way, regardless of their background in music. People sometimes come up after the concert and talk to our singers or myself about how that particular concert touched them in some way. It’s always a thrilling thing to hear that you inspired someone with what you did.”

Borton will continue to conduct the Binghamton Madrigal Choir during his retirement, but he’s also looking forward to spending more time travelling and doing hobbies. “I’m told by my retired friends that you’re busier when you retire than you were when you were teaching - you just don’t get paid for it.”

The performance takes place at the Osterhout Concert Theater in the Anderson Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets ($5-$7, free for students and children) can be purchased at the Anderson Center Box Office, by phone: (607) 777-2787, or online at andersoncenter.showare.com. Additional information can be found at binghamton.edu/anderson-center, or by calling (607) 777-6802.