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Faculty Notes | AL ROMETO
ROMETO RETIRES AFTER 41-YEAR CAREER AT UNL BY KATHE ANDERSEN
Shortly after he began teaching at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 1972, Professor of Percussion Al Rometo returned home to Pennsylvania to visit his parents. His mother was rearranging the kitchen, and Rometo saw some cake pans sitting on the kitchen table. He grabbed three or four and noticed that the bottoms of them were curvy and rippled, but yet perfectly symmetrical.
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re these some kind of special non-stick pans?” Rometo asked. “No, they used to be flat,” his mother replied.
“Was it the heat that caused this?” Rometo asked. “No,” his mother said, “You did that.” “I had a wooden spoon, and I’d walk around the house banging on them, and, for some reason, I hit them in the same spot,” Rometo said. “They fit right inside each other and everything.” That’s how Rometo’s remarkable percussion career began. He retired after the spring semester following a 41-year career teaching at UNL—the only institution at which he has taught. “Professor Al Rometo has been a treasure in our School of Music,” said Director John W. Richmond. “He has maintained a steadfast commitment to our School, our students, our faculty and staff and our alumni. He has shown us how to invest oneself in a single place in a transformational way. We will miss seeing him every day in Westbrook, but look forward to the ways he will surely invest himself in our School as an emeritus professor.” Rometo grew up outside of Pittsburgh, Pa. He remembers playing along to the television. “Back when stores used to give you things, the dry cleaners had these retractable clothes brushes. We had a couple of those, and we had a little footstool in the house that had a really, thick, vinyl covering on it,” Rometo said. “I would take those brushes, open them up and work that thing. I’d sit in front of the television, and when anything came on that had bands, I’d grab those brushes and sit down in front of this little stool. That’s where it happened.” He took piano lessons for six years, but knew he wouldn’t be a pianist.
Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts
“I just always wanted to do the ‘Let’s hit stuff,’ and I think that’s where it starts for most of us,” Rometo said. “We all have this statement we make: ‘I want to play drums,’ and then it goes from there. Let’s face it. Drums are shiny. They’re loud. This is cool, and I can hit stuff.” He was playing professionally when he was 15 years old. “I was playing in bars and clubs three nights a week,” Rometo said. “My Dad would take me there and pick me up at one in the morning. He was superintendent of the schools. I don’t know why he let me do that. It was a polka band, and we played dances and a lot of weddings, and I learned a lot.” He went to a small high school that did not have percussion equipment. Before his senior year of high school, he attended a pre-college program at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon), where he studied with Stanley Leonard, the principal timpanist for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. “I was a high school kid. I didn’t know him from Shinola, but I knew that I didn’t know,” Rometo said. “So here we are a few high school kids studying with a wizard. He was very patient, a great guy, just a wonderful man. He opened a lot of doors.”
Albert Rometo in 1972.
What he also learned from him is how to deal with people who did not have all of the same opportunities. “For that reason, that was my first inkling of that,” Rometo said. “I’ve always had a soft spot for students who, through no faults of their own, have not been privy to instruction or exposure. Over the years, I’ve accepted a number of students who, maybe at other schools, wouldn’t have been accepted.”
arts MAGAZINE | 2013