Robert Michael Lombardo

Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Robert Lombardo was the son of Michele and Rosalia Lombardo, Sicilian immigrants who settled in Hartford about a decade before his birth. His parents were both artisans: His mother, a seamstress, worked at Horsfall & Rothschild in Hartford. His father, a stoneworker, built cottages, fireplaces, and sculptural pieces around Connecticut.

While attending Weaver High School in Hartford, Robert played the clarinet both in the school band and in the Hartt College orchestra, and performed on evenings and weekends as a part of many local bands. He had planned to study music performance in college, but suffered a significant lung injury performing clarinet near the end of high school, leading by happenstance to a lifelong career in contemporary classical composition.

Robert’s training in composition included a summer at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, studying orchestration with Aaron Copland and composition with Goffredo Petrassi. He completed his PhD at the University of Iowa in 2 years, a pace he reflected on as wonderful for his music, and somewhat prohibitive for developing much of a social life in his early adulthood. On a Ford Foundation grant the summer before he began teaching, Robert and nine other composers were mentored by Igor Stravinsky at a residence with the Santa Fe Opera. Robert often recalled stories about this summer in Santa Fe and many formative summers at the MacDowell Colony (some alongside Leonard Berenstein) to his children, grandchildren, and friends.

Robert was Professor of Theory & Composition and Composer-in-Residence at Roosevelt University in Chicago from 1965 until 1999. Throughout his prolific composition career, he wrote more than 200 works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, and orchestra, as well as four chamber operas, and a number of song cycles. Many of these pieces earned national and international recognition and awards, among them: a Guggenheim Fellowship, commissions from the Serge Koussevitzky Foundation in the Library of Congress, the Fromm Foundation, and Chicago radio stations WNIB and WFMT. He received grants for his works from the Illinois Arts Council, the Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Perhaps his life’s most pivotal moment was meeting Kathleen Knudsen, a
librettist and playwright. Kathleen was taking a poetry class at University of Chicago and had asked the professor if he might know a composer. They met as creative collaborators and quickly fell in love. Robert was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in Florence, and he and Kathleen left for Italy together a month after meeting. They married there in the spring of 1965. During their 48 years of marriage, Kathleen and Robert collaborated on more than fifty works; including chamber operas, dramatic texts for voice and orchestra, song cycles, and plays.

Robert and Kathleen’s love was an inspiration to many around them, and they
often housed friends and family (born and chosen) at their home on Wellington Street in Chicago, where they raised their daughters Rosalia and Adreana. They had a strong community in Chicago, composed of artist friends from many disciplines and walks of life. For a few years in the 1980s, they set up the first floor of their home as an art gallery to showcase the work of local artists. They had a farm house in Pigeon Falls, Wisconsin where they spent many summers in the 1970s and 80s. Robert built gamelan instruments and composed pieces for them many of these summers.

Robert’s creativity radiated far beyond his compositions; in adulthood he created many abstract expressionist works, which were shown locally in Chicago galleries and displayed proudly in the homes of family and friends. His and Kathleen’s marriage enveloped their family in love, equal parts emotionally profound and intellectually vibrant. Though Kathleen passed in 2013, Robert referred to her as his Great Love in stories and letters throughout all of his 94 years.

His daughters loved growing up in an immensely creative house. From their earliest memories, they remember how their dad could always find beauty in the most ordinary things. He immersed his family in the arts, and instilled a lifelong love of creativity, spontaneity, and beauty in them. In his later years, Robert was a loving and humorous grandfather, creating games, art, songs, and stories alongside his four granddaughters. He is remembered by them as a joyful jokester who loved wordplay and always had a clever prank or riddle up his sleeve.

Robert is survived by his sister Jean Zito, two daughters Rosalia (Tom Scholle) and Adreana (Dave Mauer) and four granddaughters Maggie, Taylor, Kristina and Olivia.

A private celebration of Robert’s life will take place with family and friends. If you would like to make a donation in his honor, please consider Hartwell Place, 5520 N. Paulina Street, Chicago, IL, 60640. Robert loved living at Hartwell, a non profit memory care residence where people with dementia live with dignity.

His music is archived at the Northwestern University library, and a detailed record of his professional life can be found there. His website, robertlombardo.net, is currently being updated by family.