The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra will play two pieces by American Indian composer Louis W. Ballard today and Saturday. Ballard died Feb. 9. (Photo provided by Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra)

This weekend, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra will give its first performances of two pieces by Louis W. Ballard as part of a collaboration focusing on American Indian experiences depicted in the arts.

ISO Music Director Mario Venzago will lead the orchestra in "Incident at Wounded Knee" and give the world premiere of "Indiana Concerto" for piano and orchestra. The concerts are part of the monthlong festival "Cultural Journeys -- The Music of Spirit & Legend," in collaboration with the Eiteljorg Museum.

The ISO commissioned "Indiana Concerto" from Ballard in 2005 but he did not have a chance to complete it before he died Feb. 9 at age 75, following a bout with cancer. Ballard's colleague, Brent Michael Davids, who lives in Minnesota, completed the piece in Ballard's style.

"Louis had passed away, and he had just finished the first movement of the piano concerto," Davids said. "He was nearly finished with the first movement, but it was kind of missing an ending." Davids characterizes the first movement as "really Louis Ballard, interpreted by me and the orchestra, but it's his piano writing. The second and third movements are all me, but they're in his memory, so I'm really writing the piece about him."

Davids, who learned of Ballard from a college professor, sent the older composer scores and was encouraged to keep writing. The men became friends, and Davids visited him in Sante Fe.

"He was like a grown-up child in a way," Davids said. "He was always curious, always adventurous."

After Ballard died, the composer's family and Italian pianist Emanuele Arciuli, who will play the premiere in Indianapolis, asked Davids to complete the concerto.

Ballard's "Incident at Wounded Knee," which the orchestra will also play, is a piece from the early 1970s, and may be the composer's best-known work. Commissioned by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, it commemorates the 1890 massacre of 300 American Indians in South Dakota, as well as the 1970s protest demanding government redress.

Born in Oklahoma, Ballard moved to New Mexico in the 1960s. He wrote many orchestral, choral and chamber works based on American Indian melodies or texts. Two years ago, his music was showcased at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.