Louis Ballard

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."

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. 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. 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 Wyandotte, Oklahoma, was established in the early 1870s and was initially a mission school supported by a local group of Quakers and government subsidies. Over time, the school came under control of the government. The mission of the Seneca Indian Training School and other institutions like it can be best explained by the following message delivered by Thomas J. Morgan, the former Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in 1889: "merican Indian childrenshould be taught to look upon America as their home and upon the United States Government as their friend and benefactor. They should be made familiar with the lives of great and good men and women in American history, and be taught to feel a pride in all their great achievements. They should hear little or nothing of the 'wrongs of the Indians,' and of the injustice of the white race. If their unhappy history is alluded to, it should be to contrast it with the better future that is within their grasp."

Ballard considered these schools to be institutions that would brainwash American Indian children. Despite the efforts of the Seneca Indian Training School in discouraging him from practicing his family's customs, Ballard continued to speak in his native language and engage in tribal dances; he was constantly persecuted for doing so. This was not unlike the treatment that his mother received at a school similar to the Seneca Indian Training School, where on occasion she was beaten, handcuffed, and submitted to solitary confinement when she was caught speaking Quapaw. These disciplinary tactics were commonplace at such institutions throughout the United States and resulted in a dramatic loss of language and culture.

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 tom-toms and tomahawks by the teacher, and the other students would often taunt, harass, and throw stones at him. While living with his grandmother, though, he attended Baptist Mission School and took part in powwows as well as other community festivals. It is not surprising that he felt more comfortable living with his grandmother. There seems to be some speculation as to who first taught the young Louis Ballard to play piano at the Baptist Mission Church. One source states that it was his mother who first taught him, but another source claims that his grandmother paid an unnamed private tutor to instruct him. According to the latter, his grandmother's property contained zinc and lead, and as a result, had the financial means to purchase a piano as well as pay for piano and voice lessons. By the time he had finished high school, he had a number of achievements to his name. He was the captain of both the football team and the baseball team, he was named valedictorian and outstanding graduate of the class of 1949, and he performed in a piano recital that took place at the University of Oklahoma. Although Ballard was trained in the style of Western music, he was deeply rooted in the music and dance traditions of his culture. As a child, he often participated in powwows, and he would continue to participate in powwows into his years as a young adult. He eventually became a member of the War Dance Society of the Quapaw tribe.

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 Northeastern Oklahoma A&M in 1951. In 1954 he received a bachelor's degree in music theory and a bachelor's degree in music education at the University of Tulsa. There, he studied piano with Stefan Bardos and composition with Bela Rosza. Ballard met his first wife, Delores Lookout, on a blind date at the University of Tulsa in 1953. They were, then, married in January of the following year in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Their first son, Louis Anthony Ballard, was born on October 30, 1954. Louis had two additional children with Delores. Their daughter, Anne Marie Quetone, was born on March 7, 1956, and their second son, Charles Christopher Ballard, was born August 10, 1957. During his undergraduate studies, Ballard began exploring ways in which he could combine his passion for his Quapaw music traditions with Western music practices. Taking inspiration from Bela Bartok's use of Hungarian folk themes, one of Ballard's first attempts at unifying these two musical practices was a compositional exercise in which he arranged a Ponca Indian melody in the styles of both Chopin and Rachmaninoff. Ultimately, he was dissatisfied with the outcome, because he wanted his American Indian-influenced music to be assessed for its own unique qualities. He felt that for it to be truly original, it needed to feature American Indian music traditions without being in the style of another composer. He would later explain, " Dvorak, in 1893, predicted that America should have a form of nationalistic music built upon Indian music and Black slave songs. So I felt that I was in good company when I took up my pen to express the sufferings of my people, their regeneration and hopes for a better future life…" While Ballard was pursuing his undergraduate degrees, he sang with the Tulsa University Radio Choir in order to support himself.

After graduating, Ballard taught music at various schools throughout Oklahoma, including Marquette High School in Tulsa and Nelagoney Consolidated Schools in Osage County. He was also the music director for Memorial Baptist Church and Madelene Catholic Church in Tulsa, and First Presbyterian Church in Pawhuska. Ballard ultimately left his music director positions and supported himself by teaching private piano lessons. He returned to the University of Tulsa to pursue a master's degree in composition in 1960, and continued his studies with Bela Rosza. He graduated in 1962, and was distinguished by being the first American Indian to receive a graduate degree in music composition.

Composer and educator

After graduating, Ballard frequently attended the Aspen Music Festival and studied composition privately with notable musical figures such as Darius Milhaud, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Carlos Surinach

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