13 Facts About Bruce Chase

Robert Bruce Chase was an American composer and music arranger.

Robert Bruce Chase was born on March 22,1912, in Muscatine, Iowa.

Bruce Chase's parents were locally prominent musicians; his father a violinist and his mother a piano teacher, and he began to play violin at a young age.

In 1939 Bruce Chase created an arrangement of "I Got Rhythm" for a Pops concert played by the Kansas Philharmonic while he was a member of the violin section.

For two years during World War II Bruce Chase was stationed in the Great Lakes Naval Training Station where he was chief arranger, writing music arrangements and conducting.

From 1965 until it went off the air in 1968, Bruce Chase was the staff arranger and conductor for the nationally broadcast radio show Don McNeill's Breakfast Club.

Bruce Chase remained as a member of the orchestra until he was well into his seventies, and frequently conducted the orchestra in its performances of his arrangements on its Pops concerts.

In 1999 - several years after Bruce Chase had retired and moved back to Connecticut - the Milwaukee Symphony played his "St Louis Samba" on a historic concert in Cuba, as an encore that brought down the house.

Bruce Chase then became ill with cancer in his colon and died June 29,2001, st Hospice in Branford Connecticut.

Bruce Chase was active making symphonic music arrangements until about 1992.

From 1952, Bruce was married to violinist and teacher Fannie Chase and the father of four daughters with her, including violinist Stephanie Chase.

Bruce Chase died of colon cancer on June 29,2001, at a hospice in Branford, Connecticut.

Bruce Chase was a direct descendant of Aquila Bruce Chase, a Massachusetts Bay colonist and cofounder of Newbury, Massachusetts.