In 1923 Bolognini came to the United States to serve as a sparring partner for
Luis Firpo in preparation for Firpo's legendary world heavyweight championship fight against
Jack Dempsey. After the bout he remained in the US, settling in
Philadelphia and joining the
Philadelphia Orchestra. Four years later he moved to
Chicago, where he became principal cellist of the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra. A charismatic man with a fiery temper, Bolognini became known for such eccentricities as bringing his dog to all Symphony rehearsals, and playing all the other instruments of the orchestra. He also played
flamenco guitar, and reputedly amused his friends by playing flamenco music on his cello, as if it were a guitar. He became an aviator in the early days of flight, and was one of the founders of the
Civil Air Patrol. During
World War II he trained cadets to fly
B-29 bombers, and continued to fly airplanes into his eighties. He was also a notable marksman, swimmer, sketch artist, and gourmet cook. He spoke fluent Spanish, Italian, French, German, and English, and was conversant in Hebrew, Greek, Japanese, Hungarian, Russian, and 15 different Italian dialects. After leaving the Chicago Symphony in 1930, Bolognini toured as a soloist and became a popular conductor of the
Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, a summertime publicly sponsored orchestra in Chicago. He also became a prominent instructor;
Christine Walevska was one of his proteges. Later, he specialized in founding, building, and conducting orchestras in cities, such as
Waukegan, Illinois, that had never had such ensembles. In 1951 he moved to
Las Vegas, where he lived for the remainder of his life, and founded and conducted a symphony orchestra there (unrelated to the current
Las Vegas Philharmonic). He disliked musical recordings, and refused to allow his performances of major cello works such as the
Bach Suites to be recorded. The few professional recordings in existence are limited to musical vignettes and his own short compositions. One assemblage of amateur recordings, including most of the first Bach Suite,
Kol Nidrei, and the Prize song from
Die Meistersinger, taped surreptitiously by Bolognini's longtime accompanist Donald Kemp during concerts and rehearsals, was released as a CD in 1994. Bolognini's brother Remo was a violinist with the Chicago Symphony and the
New York Philharmonic, assistant concertmaster of the
Baltimore Symphony, and concertmaster of the
NBC Symphony under Toscanini. Another brother, Astorre, was a violist with the
Houston Symphony. Bolognini died in his sleep at the age of 85 on July 31, 1979, at his home in Las Vegas. His Rovatti cello was donated by his widow, the pianist and piano instructor Dorothy (Barber) Bolognini, to the
Smithsonian Institution in
Washington, D.C., where it remains in its permanent collection. Though a significant historical instrument in its own right, the cello's particular interest lies in 51 ballpoint pen signatures of famous musicians and entertainers, including Toscanini, Casals,
Gregor Piatigorsky,
Emmanuel Feuermann,
Fritz Kreisler,
Jascha Heifetz,
Isaac Stern,
Joseph Szigeti,
Liberace,
Jack Dempsey,
Bruno Walter,
Janos Starker,
Eugene Ormandy,
Ed Sullivan, and
Miklós Rózsa, all obtained by Bolognini during his career. The Las Vegas Music Teachers Association offers an annual scholarship competition in Bolognini's honor. His papers, manuscripts, scores, photographs, scrapbooks, and other collected ephemera reside at the
Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. ==Compositions==