John Donald Robb Musical Trust

supporting the music and musical legacy of John Donald Robb
advancing the understanding of music of the Southwest
furthering Robb's commitment to education

2025 Underwriting Award

Vestiges of Hispanic Colonial Music in the John Donald Robb Archive of Southwestern Music

Javier Marín-López, PhD (Úbeda, Spain)

Dr. Marín-López is Professor of Musicology at the Universidad de Jaén, where he specializes in Latin American, Spanish, and U.S. Southwest musical cultures from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries.
John Donald Robb (1892-1989)
led a rich and varied life as a lawyer, composer, arts educator, author and folk-song collector. He began composing classical music during his years as a successful New York lawyer, writing across classical-music genres, and continued that passion when he moved to New Mexico in 1941 to join the Department of Music faculty at the University of New Mexico. His many contributions to the state’s cultural heritage stretch from music education to preserving Hispanic folk music through thousands of field recordings. Later in life, he was one of the early owners of a Moog Synthesizer and composed a body of work for that ground-breaking instrument. Robb never stopped learning, he never stopped composing and he never stopped sharing his lifetime’s work.