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Louis Wayne Ballard -- or "Honga-no-zhe," meaning "Grand Eagle" in Quapaw -- was born on July 8, 1931, in Devil's Promenade, Okla., near Miami. His mother was Quapaw; his father Cherokee. At 6, he was sent to the Seneca Indian Training School, where the goal was to assimilate him into white American culture.
The scene opens with suspense-filled music, as a tall man in a leather jacket and a well-used fedora forges his way through the jungle. Birds and primates call, and a native guide screams. And you still haven't seen the face of Indiana Jones for the first time. But in the years since its release in 1981, everything about "Raiders of the Lost Ark" has become familiar, beloved. The whip; the slow, almost always sardonic grin; the reunion with his great love Marion; the destruction of the Ark of the Covenant at the hands of the Nazis -- and God.
"It's mind-blowing for me to remember that because of one single request from my band director, my life has had such an incredible journey," says Tommy Dobbs, assistant professor of percussion at Oklahoma City University and principal percussionist with the Fort Smith Symphony. "If you would have told 14-year-old me that one day I would be a marimba soloist with a professional orchestra, I would have literally said, 'What's a marimba and what's an orchestra?' I'm actually laughing and tearing up a bit."
Matt Riley didn't grow up celebrating Christmas. His mother, he explains, was Jewish. But now, it's Christmas year-round for the composer, his wife and their four children. Riley is also a very popular arranger of music, and he's working on new holiday arrangements constantly.
