Louis W. Ballard, an internationally renowned music composer who was a member of the Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma, died on Friday. He was 75.
Ballard blended Native traditions with Western orchestral music. He was famous in Europe, where his works received high acclaim and in Indian Country, where his instructional books were used by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and schools nationwide.
"His contribution to the music was like the beginning of our presence on the national educational level," actor/musician Floyd Red Crow Westerman told The Santa Fe New Mexican. "That's what he was recognized for: his bringing a national awareness of this kind of cultural knowledge to an institutional level where academics could understand."
Ballard taught for the BIA, for the Institute of American Indian Arts and for William Jewell College in Kansas. He resided in Santa Fe.
Get the Story:Famed composer melded Native and classic music (The Santa Fe New Mexican 2/12)
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