Jack Ballard, PhD, has composed, performed and produced music in a variety of genres, from classical and film music to jazz and bluegrass. He worked with Gunther Schuller, Wendell Jones, Arthur Post, David Maddux, and Frank Wiley, and received B.A.Ed and M.M. degrees from Central Washington and Eastern Washington Universities. His half-dissertation on hyperextended tertian sonority is from Kent State University. Its initial research received the Bruce Benward Student Music Theory Award in 2007. His ballet, The Castle for orchestra, received the Ipark Foundation’s Thanatopolis Prize for Memorial Composition for the movement, “Lament,” and in 2012 was the winner of GBE competition for his piece, Dances for solo violin. A selection from his oratorio, Incarnatus Dei won Honorable Mention with the Vanguard Premiers competition, and he is recently finished his Concerto for Orchestra.
Probably the best known representation of his diversity in styles and instrumentation is his song cycle The Psalms (REX Music, 1994), which includes such jazz notables as Alex Acuña, David Friesen, Fletch Wiley, Tom Patitucci, and others, and members of the Oregon Symphony. “So unique and creative, it breaks new artistic ground” from National Religious Broadcaster. “A great collection:” Moody Monthly. Of his symphonic poem for orchestra, The Traveler’s Psalm, the Durango Herald wrote: “Enchanting, lyrical and polished to the point that it sounded as if it were the work of one of our time-honored masters.”
As a Fulbright Scholar in African Music (Kenya, 2013), it is no surprise that his pieces often incorporate classical and ethnic styles throughout the world, but especially New World and Old World styles that contributed to the development of music in North and South America. Ballard’s production company, Kiwibird Creative Services, specializes in production that develops popular and classical style integration, such as film scoring and eclectic CD projects, and markets its services in the film world as being genre-, ethnically and period- specific and diverse.
He presently teaches music production, ethnomusicology, and composition at Malone University in Canton, Ohio.
