Learn more about this recording on the Naxos Classical Spotlight podcast!

Louis Wayne Ballard was the first indigenous North American composer of art music and a highly respected authority on his culture’s musical heritage. Conductor John Jeter and the Forth Smith Symphony continue their Naxos journey of rediscovering neglected American composers in a program of world premiere recordings.

REVIEW:

The conductor John Jeter could be categorized as an angelic force for overlooked American music. Here, he and his Fort Smith Symphony are back for an invaluable hour in the company of the Native American composer Louis Wayne Ballard, whose music has yet to receive substantial interest from record labels.

The first three movements from “Scenes From Indian Life,” written in 1963, have an unassuming playfulness. (The fourth movement, appended in 1994, takes on a graver cast.) But the longer pieces are even more impressive. Selections from Ballard’s ballet “The Four Moons” could pair well with Bernstein’s “Fancy Free” suite. The tone-poem writing of Ballard’s Fantasy Aborigine No. 3, “Kokopelli” could lend an American air to an orchestral program featuring music by Strauss.

The singing wind, brass, and string lines threaded throughout his “Devil’s Promenande” are captivating, too. While the playing here is persuasive as per usual, I also came away from this album hoping to hear Ballard’s music taken up by orchestras far and wide.

-- New York Times (Seth Colter Walls)