Louis W. 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 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. 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 t