Robert Gilmore has been actively involved with music education for 45 years. He began his musical career as a performing musician, playing French horn in New York and throughout the Midwest and Southeast. After ten years of experience as a teacher and supervisor of vocal and instrumental music in the public schools of Louisiana, he was appointed State Supervisor of Music in the Louisiana State Department of Education.

From 1946 until he retired in 1971, with only a two-year interruption while on the faculty of Columbia University, Dr. Gilmore was on the music faculty of the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette. During his twenty-three years at USL, he served as professor of music, brass instructor, and band director. When he retired from USL in 1971, he had the title of Research Specialist in Music.

Since retirement, Robert Gilmore and his wife Jeanne traveled and published materials concerned with the French heritage of South Louisiana. Operating their own publishing company, “Acadiana Music”, they produced a number of publications, including "La Chantez, Louisiane!", a book of Louisiana French folksongs, "A Chronicle in Comparative Music Education", a look at music education in the United States and Western Europe, and "Our Heritage", a book of Hungarian folksongs for the community of Albany, Louisiana.

Gilmore has been at the forefront of leadership of the Louisiana Music Educators Association (LMEA) since its inception. He served as District Director, Band Vision Chairman, Vocal Division Chairman, Elementary Music Division Chairman, and LMEA President on two occasions (1941-1942 and 1968-1971). He was the chairman of the very first Louisiana All-State Band in 1939.