Louis W. Ballard
Louis W. Ballard | |
---|---|
Quapaw Nation, American | |
Education | University of Oklahoma, University of Tulsa |
Known for | Musical composition, writing, painting |
Louis W. Ballard (July 8, 1931 – February 9, 2007) was a Native American composer, educator, author, artist, and journalist. He is "known as the father of Native American composition."[1]
Early life
Louis Wayne Ballard was born on July 8, 1931, in Devil's Promenade near Miami, Oklahoma. His father was Charles G. Ballard, Cherokee, and his mother Leona Quapaw was Quapaw.[2] On his mother's side, he was related to a prominent medicine chief of the Quapaw Tribe, and on his father's side he was related to Joel B. Mayes, a principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.[2] His Quapaw name, Honganozhe, translates to "One Who Stands With Eagles".
Ballard's education began at the Seneca Indian Training School when he was six years old. The Seneca Indian Training School, a boarding school located in
Ballard considered these schools to be institutions that would
After leaving boarding school, Ballard's parents divorced, and he and his brother, Charles Ballard, lived with their mother and step-father for part of the year and with their grandmother for the other part of the year. During this period of his life, Ballard struggled with his identity. With his mother, he lived what could have been described as a typical American life-style with little spiritual or cultural guidance. In school, he was often forced to draw
After high school, Ballard continued to pursue music while at college. He began studying at the University of Oklahoma in 1949, and then transferred to
After graduating, Ballard taught music at various schools throughout Oklahoma, including Marquette High School in
Composer and educator
After graduating, Ballard frequently attended the
In 1966, the Ballard family hired Lydia Talache as a housekeeper and babysitter for their three children. While she worked for them, Lydia became very close to the family. She frequented the Ballard residence twice a week until 1970. According to Lydia Talache, Louis Ballard was well liked in the American Indian community, and his music was very well received by the community at large. She recounted that the vast majority of Pueblo people favored the music that Ballard had composed and were enthusiastic about Ballard's depiction of American Indian culture in his music. Ballard was also respected as a musician and composer among the non-American Indian music community in Santa Fe. Michael Udow, the principal percussionist of the Santa Fe Opera orchestra from 1968 until his retirement in 2009, personally attested to the respect that Ballard garnered among the other musicians and by the local community in general.
From 1968 until 1979, Ballard was appointed as the National Curriculum Specialist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. During this time, he worked with over three hundred and fifty schools nationwide, and was exposed to the cultures and musical traditions of many different tribes. During his time with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, he made one of his most valuable contributions as a music educator and champion of American Indian music and culture. In 1973, Ballard wrote and published American Indian Music for the Classroom, a curriculum complete with recordings for teachers who wanted to incorporate American Indian music in classroom instruction.
Throughout his career, Louis Ballard composed a large number of musical works for a variety of different instruments and ensembles. Many of Ballard's works have been premiered at major venues and have garnered awards and accolades nationally and internationally. "Scenes from Indian Life" was originally a three movement orchestral work which premiered in Rochester, New York, and was conducted by Howard Hanson in 1964. The same piece with an added a fourth movement, "Feast Day," was performed by the San Jose Symphony as a part of its "Voices of America" program in 1994 along with Aaron Copland's "Lincoln Portrait" and Leonard Bernstein's Symphony no. 2, "The Age of Anxiety." In 1969, Ballard's Ritmo Indio, a three movement work for woodwind quintet, won the first Marion Nevins McDowell Award for American Chamber Music, and was featured as the opening work at the gala Quintet of the Americas concert, "Discovering the New World: A Quincentennial Event," at Carnegie Hall on January 9, 1992. The first movement of Ritmo Indio, "The Soul," was also recorded on two of the Quintet of the Americas' albums: Souvenirs, and Discovering the New World. Ballard began experimenting with other mediums and ventured outside the chamber ensemble format when he composed two works for ballet. The Four Moons, written in honor and celebration of Oklahoma's sixtieth year of statehood in 1967, was performed both in Tulsa and in Oklahoma City. It was also featured at the Tulsa Ballet's New York debut performance in 1983. His second ballet, Desert Trilogy, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1971. In 1976 Ballard's choral cantata Portrait of Will Rogers was premiered by the Kansas City Symphony with Will Rogers, Jr. as the narrator.
Another popular and critically acclaimed composition is his chamber orchestral work, Incident at Wounded Knee, inspired by a stream of daily newspaper reports that were covering the court proceedings related to the
Ballard's works have also been premiered at prestigious venues such as the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and the Smithsonian Institution. In 1999, he was the first American composer to have a complete concert dedicated to his music at
While working on a newly commissioned piano concerto, Louis W. Ballard died at the age of seventy-five on February 9, 2007, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after a five-year-struggle against cancer. His body was cremated, and his ashes were placed on his mother's grave in Miami, Oklahoma. In the years following 1990, Ruth Ballard had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and her mental health was declining. As a result, she had to relinquish her responsibilities as Louis Ballard's manager and publicist. In 2001, Ruth was institutionalized due to her progressing condition remaining under the guardianship of Louis W. Ballard.After Louis W. Ballard's death, guardianship of Ruth Ballard went to his son, Louis A. Ballard. She would later pass away on January 30, 2015 in Santa Fe, New Mexico and is buried in the Jewish section of Rivera Cemetery. Though she was neither observant, nor affiliated with a synagogue, Louis A. Ballard felt that, because of her Jewish ancestry, she deserved a burial ceremony that was as close to a traditional Jewish burial ceremony as possible.
Ballard left behind the following credo: "It is not enough to acknowledge that Native American Indian music is merely different from other music. What is needed in America is an awakening and reorienting of our total spiritual and cultural perspectives to embrace, understand, and learn from the Aboriginal American and what motivates his musical and artistic impulses."[3]
His music has been celebrated with three concerts at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. in 2006 as well as a memorial concert held at the same venue on November 10, 2007.[4]
Awards and recognition
Ballard graduated in 1962 from the University of Tulsa, and was distinguished by being the first American Indian to receive a graduate degree in music composition. In 1969, Ballard's Ritmo Indio, a three movement work for woodwind quintet, won the Marion Nevins McDowell Award for American Chamber Music. Ballard's Desert Trilogy, his second work for ballet, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1971. In 1999, he was the first American composer to have a complete concert dedicated to his music at Beethovenhalle in Bonn, Germany. He has also received the National Indian Achievement Award four times. In addition, he was awarded with several more awards in honor of his contributions which include: the Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Central Office of Education, a citation in the U.S. Congressional Record, and the Cherokee Medal of Honor.[5]
Ballard was also the recipient of grants from the
Filmography
- 1971: Discovering American Indian Music. Directed by Bernard Wilets. Barr Films.
See also
- List of Native American artists
- Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas
- Quapaw Tribe
- Quapaw, Oklahoma
Notes
- ISBN 9780810877092.
- ^ a b King, Jeanne Snodgrass (1968). American Indian painters; a biographical directory. Smithsonian Libraries. New York : Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation.
- ^ Berkowitz, Adam Eric (2015). Finding a Place for Cacega Ayuwipi within the Structure of American Music and Dance Traditions. Boca Raton, FL: Florida Atlantic University. pp. 4–15. Retrieved 4 November 2017.
- ^ "National Museum of the American Indian". 4 March 2016. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 18 June 2017.
- ^ Berkowitz, Adam Eric (2015). Finding a Place for Cacega Ayuwipi within the Structure of American Music and Dance Traditions. Boca Raton, FL: Florida Atlantic University. pp. 9–14. Retrieved 4 November 2017.
- ^ Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame & Museum. "2004 Inductees: Dr. Louis Ballard". Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame. Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame & Museum. Retrieved 4 November 2017.
External links
- Louis W. Ballard official site at the Wayback Machine (archive index)
- Louis W. Ballard page from Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame
- Program note for Incident at Wounded Knee, from American Composers Orchestra site
- Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture – Ballard, Louis
- Louis W. Ballard obituary, by David Collins and Craig Smith, from The New Mexican
- "American Indian Composers Go Classical", by Felix Contreras, from All Things Considered, January 1, 2009