Bruce MacCombie was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1943. He first studied composition with Philip Bezanson at the University of Massachusetts, where he earned a B.A. in 1967 and an M.M in 1968. He also studied with Wolfgang Fortner at the Freiburg Conservatory and holds a Ph.D. in music from the University of Iowa. In 1975, after four years in Europe, he gained appointed to the Music Theory faculty at Yale University and one year later was appointed to the Composition faculty at the Yale School of Music. While at Yale he coordinated an annual series of new music concerts and taught various seminars relating to 20th Century music literature.

In 1979, MacCombie was awarded one of the first Goddard Lieberson Fellowships by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The award noted that “Mr. MacCombie composes polished gems of musical understatement. Characterized by a fresh and penetrating wit, they sparkle and yet are clothed in mystery.”During the 1979 – 80 season, various works were presented by Composers Forum in New York, where Bernard Holland, writing in the New York Times, referred to MacCombie as “a deft and evocative craftsman.” Since then, his works have been commissioned by organizations such as the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the 20th Century Consort, the Jerome Foundation, and the International Guitar Foundation. Performances have been given at Carnegie Hall, the Seattle Opera House, the Kennedy Center, the Warsaw Autumn Festival, the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Alice Tully Hall, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Royal Academy of Music, and other venues and festivals throughout the U.S. and Europe.

From 1980 to 1986 MacCombie served as Director of Publications for G.Schirmer and Associated Music Publishers, from 1986 to 1992 as Dean of The Juilliard School, from 1992 to 2001 as Dean of the School for the Arts at Boston University, and since 2002 as Professor of Music and Associate Dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he has also been awarded an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts.