Keeping the Rhythm Alive: A Journey into Unknown Scores and Hidden Corners
While a global viral pandemic with enforced “social distancing” and temporary closure of performance venues lasting years worldwide may not seem like the ideal time to think about long buried classical music, the disruption in normal programming actually presented such an opportunity to those who were prepared for it. Within the United States, regional symphonies and orchestras often have budget constraints compared to their larger metropolitan counterparts. Some might view this as a reason to stick to the well-worn material that will be sure to appeal to the widest possible audience year-round. However, this is also a likely way to get stuck in a rut and perhaps not be able to differentiate yourself from the competition. In today’s live performance market finding new material or presenting an entirely new take on old material is one tactic towards raising the status and notoriety of your group.
One such group known as the “Fort Smith Symphony” located in Fort Smith, Arkansas, are demonstrating that size and location don’t matter towards ambition of musical material selected. Pockets of the middle-west and south-east sometimes hold hidden cultural gems that have been overlooked over the past century. The symphony, directed by John Jeter for the past 26 seasons, has a long-standing relationship with the recording company Naxos and have established a reputation locally for quality performances with international scope. Mr. Jeter himself is a featured conductor on Naxos and frequently conducts for other orchestras across the U.S. and Europe. In 2018, the symphony was approached with a rare opportunity to take on a never performed or recorded piece by an American composer from 1945. The plot twist? This orchestral piece was composed by Florence Price, the first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer and the first to have her work performed by a major orchestra. This piece, entitled Symphony №4 in D minor, was never performed during her lifetime and was found an astonishing 64 years later at her former summer house in St. Anne, Illinois.
When the orchestral work was uncovered in 2009, it seemed to have finally found its right audience. With a new appreciation for mavericks from American minority groups and endeavoring to correct racially biased histories, the piece sparked some underground interest until it was picked up by the Fort Smith Symphony in 2018. The symphony performed a world premiere and generated a recording which debuted on Naxos in early 2019. This was the first time the work could be heard worldwide, and Florence’s music could regain appreciation among her contemporaries. One such contemporary was the African American composer William Grant Still, whose work was also performed and recorded by the Fort Smith Symphony. As Mr. Jeter states on the impact of this revival: “The Florence Price and William Grant Still recording project went way beyond our wildest expectations in terms of the number of people reached by the recordings. We know that millions have already streamed this music internationally.”
In the spirit of historical preservation and accessing lesser-known cultural gems, the Fort Smith Symphony are now engaging with the work of late Native American composer Louis W. Ballard. Ballard was a member of the Quapaw tribe of Oklahoma whose ancestral roots lie in the Arkansas region prior to forced migration during the 1800’s to eastern Oklahoma. He, like Florence Price, was an anomaly at the time and is credited as one of the first Native American classical music composers to cross many milestones, such as graduating with a Masters in composition and having his work performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Ballard had humble beginnings being born on the Quapaw reservation near the Oklahoma-Arkansas border. He was sent to one of the now infamous Indian boarding schools for “assimilating” Native American children into American life without the influence of their family. He was punished for speaking Quapaw at the school and left with negative views towards the institutions. These schools have now been shut down in the U.S., but their legacy of cultural genocide remains a sore point in many modern Native communities across both the U.S and Canada.
Despite these challenges, Ballard was still able to get a world-class education in Oklahoma and produce some timeless works that are now synonymous with Native identity and expression in the fine arts. During the fall of 2022, the Fort Smith Symphony offered their unique Perspectives Chamber Music Series for the first time to start introducing innovative chamber music in a local concert series. Two of the evenings featured Ballard’s music including the Fire Moon String Quartet alongside work of other composers in themes of 20th Century Winds and Legendary Voices. According to Mr. Jeter: “Louis Ballard’s music that was performed at our Perspective Chamber Music concerts was hugely successful. Our audience and musicians loved these works! Indigenous cultural history and the legacy of the Quapaw are of great interest to our community. The relevancy of Ballard’s music, in addition to the quality of the music itself meant a lot to everyone involved in the chamber music concerts and will be of similar significance, although hugely magnified for our Louis Ballard concert and recording project in April.”
On April 22nd (2023), the Symphony will be performing the Four Moons Suite, Devil’s Promenade, Fantasy Aborigine №3, Scenes from an Indian Life, Feast Day, and the Incident at Wounded Knee. Likewise, through their community educational program they have included three traditional tribal songs from Ballard’s legacy education set targeted at youth classical music programs. Regarding their youth education programs, Jeter says: “We bring ensembles into the elementary school with a program called ‘symphony in the schools’, where the symphony string quartet performs to all of the third-grade classes in our region. They talk about string instruments and the general building blocks of music.” Preceding the performance and recording, there will also be an educational talk given on Ballard’s music to the University of Arkansas by academic Dr. Erik Ettinger who has been working on the archive and digital restoration efforts of Ballard music over the past several years.
The historical significance of Ballard’s music, as well as the cultural movements he was a part of during his lifetime are currently being explored in the revival website published earlier last year by his granddaughter (myself), Simone Ballard: www.lwballard.com. Members of the family will be in attendance to celebrate his music live for the first time since an honorary concert was given by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra in 2007. While Ballard’s work remains in circulation and played frequently by orchestras around the country, a full-scale recording such as the one prepared by the Fort Smith Symphony — Naxos partnership has not happened in decades. This is an exciting and historic moment for American classical music preservation and revival efforts around the country. Follow the performances and buy tickets here: https://fortsmithsymphony.org/concerts/.
