When the late Peter Bagley gave his choral students “the look” – that trademark, side-eyed, stone-faced glance – they’d almost quake in place.

“He was highly demanding. Woe to you to not come to rehearsal prepared, and woe to you if you came in late,” says Jamie Spillane, associate music professor and UConn’s director of choral studies. “He was from that era of conductors who were powerful. We all laugh about it now, but if you got the Bagley look, there wasn’t much more you needed.”

Bagley’s exactingness, nonetheless, yielded him a special place in the hearts of those who benefitted from his tutelage, groundbreaking stature as a Black musician and teacher, and friendship as a colleague with a national reputation that intrinsically connected UConn and Bagley in conversation.

Heartwarming remembrances poured in following his death at 88 in January, Spillane says, with several news outlets taking note of his passing and professional organizations posting memorials in his honor. There were no calling hours or services for people to pay their respects, though.

In the Bagley way, Spillane and a group of UConn alumni decided the best way to honor their beloved mentor would be through song, a special one for UConn’s former director of choral activities that’s become tradition at the University since Bagley first staged it many holiday seasons ago.

“Handel’s ‘Messiah’ was one of Peter’s favorite things,” Spillane says. “It’s a piece that never really feels old and has lasted since the 1700s. It’s wonderful because it is the most programmed piece of choral music in history. It’s performed throughout the world every year.”

And Bagley loved its “Hallelujah” chorus.

“We were lucky to know him and honoring him with a memorial concert just seems so appropriate. He was brilliant and beloved and had just a profound effect on so many,” Spillane says.

The Dr. Peter Bagley Memorial Messiah-Sing, which will be held Saturday, Sept. 21, will feature 120 alumni, all Bagley’s former students, including 14 alumni conductors and 10 soloists. A handful of current UConn music students also will lend their voices, along with instrumental accompaniment from the UConn Symphony Orchestra.

Spillane says alumni are coming in from all over the country, some who have established careers in music and others who pursued a range of other vocations – all influenced by the man who headed UConn’s choral program for 28 years and also served as a special assistant to the dean in the School of Fine Arts.

UConn Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Anne D’Alleva, who worked with Bagley first when she was a professor in the art and art history department and then when she was named SFA dean, will offer remarks. Louis Hanzlik, trumpet professor and head of the music department, also will speak.

Former students from Bagley’s first college teaching position at SUNY New Paltz are joining, with rehearsals starting Friday for soloists and conductors. Early Saturday, the full choir and piano will rehearse before the UConn Symphony Orchestra joins in the afternoon just before a 5 p.m. show.

“There’s just a buzz among the alumni that they’re coming back and have a chance to honor him,” Spillane says. “They’re excited to be back together, different eras of students from his 40-plus-year career. We have some who were students of his when he was a very young man and some from the last years of his teaching.”

His legacy lives in these alums, Spillane says, when they teach and their students go on to be teachers. It’s not hard to believe there are generations of choral music educators and performers around the country who have directly or indirectly been influenced by Bagley.

And that all started in 1957 when he became the first Black teacher in the Greenwich public school system – never mind a Black conductor in a profession that has favored white men.

“He was certainly the most famous of all of us,” Spillane says of UConn’s history of choral leaders that includes John Poellein before Bagley. “He also was the most important of all of us. His effect on choral music and breaking the color barrier in choral music is so profound.”

The Dr. Peter Bagley Memorial Messiah-Sing will be held Saturday, Sept. 21, at 5 p.m. at von der Mehden Recital Hall on the Storrs campus. Admission is free. A dinner will follow at 7:30 p.m. for those who registered.