Robert W. Mols

Published December 5, 2013 This content is archived.

Services will be held at 1 p.m. Dec. 13 in St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 4007 Main St., Eggertsville, for Robert W. Mols, a longtime member of the music faculty and composer of the UB fight song who died Nov. 29 after a short illness. He was 92.

A native of Buffalo, Mols earned a master’s degree and PhD at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music.

A professor in UB’s music department for 32 years, Mols wrote “Victory March” in 1956, which was used as the school’s official fight song. It was played at the beginning and end of each football game, and when the team scored.

He also founded the UB Woodwind Quartet, founded and directed the Western New York Youth Orchestra and the Cheektowaga Symphony, and served as music director and conductor of the Genesee Symphony Orchestra in Batavia.

Mols received a grant to study conducting at the prestigious Mozarteum at the University of Salzburg in Austria.

Original manuscripts for 11 of his compositions are held in the special collections of the Sibley Music Library at the University of Rochester.

He retired from UB in 1985 as a professor emeritus.