A studio, a history, his life... A true arsenal of knowledge.

Sitting in front of a piano, you…

From his strumming, the melody

Suddenly the environment gets filled of emotion, an intoxicating sound fulfills one’s heart and mind and we are taken by the magic of his music.
The emotion we feel when we listen to his piano is not different from the emotion of hearing his stories, when see the sincerity of his blue look and the purity of his smile.
The impression we have when we are by his side is that life is made of music and happiness.
Many have written and spoken about the compositor, many others have listened to his pieces, but it is great to speak about you, simply Nilson Lombardi.
A professor that walks around the streets of our city, conquering everyone with sympathy and humbleness, living with intensity, happiness and enthusiasm.
Master in the art of making friends, always faithful, fellow of everyone around him.
Young Master, with adorable hobbies of enjoying antique things, such as cars, an Italian coffeepot and his hilarious watches.
An outgoing Master, which does not miss an opportunity of having someone laughing at his jokes.
Master with his own style, which does not let go from his coat and the inseparable ties,

In love Master, with life and family.
Admirable Master,
Beloved Master,
In short, Nilson Lombardi, you are the Professor, Master and the Man which keep educating pupils in art and in life.

Naiçara Garbin
Journalist
Sorocaba, February of 2003

 

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I have had the privilege of knowing him (and I was already aware of it) it has been more than thirty years. 
We have met when my beloved professor Maria de Oliveira Cordeiro invited him to listen to my audition and prepared me psychologically – which she has always done with an unique expertise – for the responsibility of the event. Play for such an honorable listener has been such a great motivation that I still feel the tension of it, lived as sign of transition, a step to a state of pre-maturing. Even though I do not precisely recall the fact itself, how was it, how have I played, what he has told me, it is very clear in my mind the image of a strong and exciting impression which has occasioned great opening in my horizon of ideas and mainly of questions. I remember the strong impression of vivacity, politeness and elegance which has resulted from that meeting. Many other qualities, the knowledge, the purity of feelings and the free spirit of Nilson that I was able to tell right away, almost without noticing the great privilege I was being granted.

I started studying at the Conservatory of Tatuí – as Mrs. Maria wanted me to – at Eudóxia de Barros and Nilson’s class, my privilege became excessively exclusive by riding his mystic Karman Ghia to the conservatory, and from there to lunch – along with the masters! – and back home, and to the concerts, to the movie, and to have a pizza at the Leiteria Americana (American Dairy) after the Municipal Theater of São Paulo, the capital which seemed to belong to him!

I am not able to describe how much teaching of life I have learned from Nilson. His ‘ministry’ has been so great and generous that I could only find equivalent expression in music. Continuing my studies I have always been strongly stimulated by his exquisite musical likes, idealizing the noblest repertory, noticing from it the most admirable interpretations, always through his sharpened critical spirit and never dissociated from his humbleness and the great respect to music itself and from the great musicians.

It is needless to say that all these qualities are part of his talent as a compositor! I have learned to know the profound truth – a sincere soul – behind each note written by him. In fact, the great musical critic and longed-friend Dr. José da Veiga Oliveira has written that “Nílson Lombardi is always sincere in each note he throws at the pentagram” and this specific gift enriched by the knowledge that was ‘scientifically’ transmitted by Camargo Guarnieri, plus the huge spiritual experience from the beautiful person he is, make him one of the most talented contemporanean Brazilian pianistic compositors, well defined by Luis Roberto Trench, critic from ‘O Dia’ newspaper.

As a pianist of excellent formation, from Mrs. Maria School and afterwards of Nellie Braga, Nilson faced pianistic pieces of great skill (Schumann Concert, Chopin Ballads, Scriabine Prelude…) and this conquering achieved only by a few compositors made him fly with the imagination of big spaces and pinnacles of pianistic techniques, nevertheless his tendency to the minimalist style, as he calls it – this is succinct, essential, not in the way that we call something minimalist nowadays, however it can be sometimes (Miniature n. 1, for exemple), but celebrated, sublimed, to mention the words of Dr. Veiga once again. The “creator vein” in his case is never taken to the prolixity, even though it forwards dense and complex ideas both technical and structural, what required from the interpreter an arduous preparation. Many of his pieces, such as the Ponteios n.3, n.6, n.10, the variations about “Mucama Bonita”, the Estudio n.1 are real challenges to the pianists. Even after so many years, I am still fighting for some of them! Someone may ask: “How come? He knows and plays these songs his whole life and is still fighting to conquer them!” That is how it is. The more one knows, the less is known. Even playing them hundreds of times, having recorded them and teaching these pieces to so many people, I keep rediscovering his ideas, his anthological trajectories, his supernatural and sublime poetic and all the story that a great love for the piano transformed in a beautiful acoustic garden.

Fabio Luz
Torino, July of 2002