Music professor balances three careers
Michael Ballam considers himself a dreamer. Between being a USU professor of one of the largest classes on campus, the founder of the annual Utah Festival Opera and Musical Theatre, and a performer by profession, making things happen is what he does every day.
“I essentially volunteer in everything I do,” Ballam said. “As a result of being a volunteer, I have to continue to go someplace else to make a living.”
Ballam began performing at four years old and hasn’t ceased in taking center stage since. In his creative arts class he often recounts a story of his first audition for a school musical in which he wanted the lead – and got it.
His main purpose in teaching is to help his students see they can create and be anything, he said.
“I don’t think life is about a midterm and a final,” Ballam said. “I want to help 1,000 students think deeper than they may normally think.”
Ballam has been teaching at USU for 25 years now and loves doing it, though he said it was something he never intended to do.
“It just kind of happened,” Ballam said. “Here I am, and I will probably be here when I’m 100.”
The reason for coming back to Logan with his family 25 years ago was to save the Ellen Eccles Theatre, which was going to be torn down, he said.
“I guess that’s been my life – saving old buildings, starting opera festivals,” he said.
Ballam said giving 100 percent all day every day is his way of life. However, this has often taken a toll on his family life, mostly due to his constant travelling as a popular performer all over the world, he said.
“I was a very absentee father,” he said.
Ballam said once his young daughter called while he was on the road to tell him she had been watching an opera in which a girl dies when someone she loves is gone away for too long.
“She says, ‘I’m going to die if you don’t come home,'” Ballam said. “I realized I was really messing up my kids, and I decided I would never leave again for an extended period of time without taking one of my kids.”
Ballam said it was probably hardest for his kids to understand that performing on a stage in front of people was actually a job for him.
“Often, they would probably think, ‘Why does Daddy leave us just to have fun?'” Ballam said. “It’s been 30 years now since I started up taking them with me. They understand what I do is a job, that it’s hard.”
It’s been difficult to continue performing for so many years as his primary livelihood, he said. Practicing scenes and songs for hours on end, constantly transitioning from on and off stage, working under the pressure of only live performance requires extreme dedication, he said.
Working in live shows and performances is different from being in front of a camera, he said, mostly because live performances give the performer one chance to get things right.
“It’s very hard. You’re only as good as your last performance,” Ballam said. “On the live stage everybody remembers (your mistakes), they talk about it. I’ve (had) a rather stressful life because of that.”
However, Ballam said performing is just one-third of his life – the Festival Opera and teaching at USU make a total of three careers.
Ballam said he has 300 employees who work at the Utah Festival Opera, and every year he has the opportunity to choose 70 artists from around the world to perform each summer.
About 1,000 singers audition from 24 cities, and once they are chosen they come for 12 weeks. The Utah Festival Opera arranges housing for all performers and also pays for their travel to and from Logan. He also said it’s important the performers have a good experience while they’re here.
“It is to bring exceptional art to people who wouldn’t otherwise have it,” Ballam said. “We try and do musical theater the way it use to be.”
Ballam said his teaching salary at USU goes toward the Festival Opera, which is a nonprofit organization that charges only as much for tickets as is necessary to perpetuate the annual festival.
“This is important to me,” Ballam said. “My mind is always going to keep the opera going.”
He said he’s proud that the Utah Festival Opera grows and becomes more successful every year, but teaching at USU is just as important. Ballam said he works to reach out to and help as many students as possible.
“I can tell when I’m looking out there into the faces – you can see that little lightbulb in their head,” Ballam said. “It’s not about the class, it’s to develop life skills. It’s to show them that the arts are more than entertainment.”
Exposing students and the general public to the way music can affect lives is what Ballam said is his main focus in teaching – whether it be at the Utah Festival Opera, performing on stage or teaching in the Kent Concert Hall.
“I don’t get up there because it’s a job,” Ballam said. “Nobody made me do this. Probably the best thing I ever did was say yes to USU.”
– mandy.morgan@aggiemail.usu.edu