Meet Sebastiano Lombardo

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sebastiano Lombardo. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Sebastiano, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

I have two strong parents who have both imparted their strength, work ethic, and resilience to me in different ways. For me personally, though, I find myself verbalizing the difficulties of what I’m working through and contemplate giving up. But within me, there’s a stubborn and headstrong voice that says, “You want this to work. You are going to get it done.” Very rarely does that voice lose, but if it does I am able to find a graceful way to accept that whatever it was just wasn’t in the cards- either now or ever.
For example, my university time has come with its fair share of workloads. One particular semester, I had a final project concert of my work AND a senior recital of classical music I had to prepare all at once. Many would have dropped the project, given up, or extended a semester. But I was determined to get this done. And I did! 50 minutes of classical singing one month and 1hr and 15min of original work in the next.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I was born into an Italian family with two younger sisters. My mother is half Italian and half Polish, while my father is full Sicilian. My father owns a family restaurant that I grew up working in and around, which helped develop my skills working with big groups of people. My mother is quite the creative in her own right, which inspired me to follow my artistic pursuits.

My musical bones developed pretty early. I started playing piano at 10 years old, though I was notorious for not wanting to practice. I even took a few years off from the instrument. I found that I could only return when I set the terms of what I wanted to play. I also found myself in choirs from elementary school through high school, eventually getting my undergrad in Voice and am currently obtaining my Master’s.

My original work has taken many forms over the years, starting with an electronic sound that I would use to recreate scenes in my head. As I got into university, my music became more instrumental with vocals and nature soundscapes added on top. The culmination of this second phase came with the release of “Chrysalis” last year, a 15-song album that I played live in my undergrad. I find that even when I can’t relisten to older works of mine, I still know that I needed to get those songs written. They had to get out of my head and onto the computer/piano/paper/etc because it helps me work with whatever emotion that song brought out of me.

Entity was born out of that desire. On most platforms, I add “15” to the name for two reasons: 1) Entity by itself was taken, but 2) I used “15” in many different areas of my life already. “12” would’ve also worked, but I felt it didn’t roll off the tongue as well.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Life brings us in so many directions, and I find that the first quality to foster is to follow your gut. Following your heart sometimes blinds us, but our gut also listens to our subconscious and brings up emotions we weren’t expecting. I could not have forseen the path I went on, but my gut brought me along and I tried trusting it as much as I could.

The second piece of advice is to develop a base for what you want…then change it when you start to get too comfortable. I loved tinkering around with Garageband, Reason, and Logic on the computer because it felt like the best tool at the time to communicate. But I changed to a more instrumental sound because that tool no longer felt authentic. Yes, I did still incorporate the piano, but I also used my training voice and some extra sounds. So whether you’re a drummer and want to try guitar or a pianist who wants to try a theremin, go for it.

My third piece of advice is to find people who disagree with you respectfully and hold onto them. We live in an age where people are so comfortable surrounding themselves with praise and never receiving criticism. It is a skill to learn how to receive and give constructive feedback. So when you find someone who supports you but has some things to say to help, listen to them. Ultimately, you can agree or not. But I find that having people to give feedback on your work helps transform it into something you never thought possible.

What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?

I would say that developing a strong base that you feel comfortable jumping off from has been key for me, but I also know how I function. Having spent a lot of time honing my voice in school, I divided my time into multiple chunks looking into many different areas. I needed variety so that I could return to my vocal studies with a clear perspective. It also fueled my original work; new strengths that I developed or new weaknesses I discovered turned into material to write about.

Realistically, you cannot ever truly master a craft. There is always an angle you haven’t seen, a form you haven’t perfected, and a person you didn’t inspire. Some may be dejected by that, but that excites me; there’s ALWAYS something new.

Recently, I’ve explored more of my interests in computers while on summer break from university. I’ve also been preparing for my Master’s Thesis recital with some work in languages that aren’t frequently performed in the classical world. And I rented out a recorder to get some new soundscape ideas for my next album. All of these things I believe are important to cultivate for me, because they nourish my soul. And they keep me humble; if there’s always something new, then there’s more opportunities for me to learn.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Poster and Album cover photos taken by Marisa Incelli

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