On this episode of the Salvationist podcast, we welcome Major Len Ballantine, former leader of the Canadian Staff Songsters and the International Staff Songsters, a prolific composer, and one of the giants of contemporary Salvation Army music.
Over the course of this wide-ranging interview, Major Ballantine takes us through his life’s journey—from his salvation experience at the Salvation Army corps in Windsor, Ontario, to his retirement from active ministry last fall.
On this episode of the Salvationist podcast, we welcome Major Len Ballantine, former leader of the Canadian Staff Songsters and the International Staff Songsters, a prolific composer, and one of the giants of contemporary Salvation Army music.
Over the course of this wide-ranging interview, Major Ballantine takes us through his life’s journey—from his salvation experience at the Salvation Army corps in Windsor, Ontario, to his retirement from active ministry last fall.
Kristin Ostensen
This is the Salvationist podcast. I’m Kristin Ostensen.
It’s a new season of the Salvationist podcast and for our first episode, I’m thrilled to welcome one of the giants of contemporary Salvation Army music, Major Len Ballantine. Perhaps you know him as the leader of the Canadian Staff Songsters and the International Staff Songsters. Or maybe you’ve listened to or played one of his many compositions. Or perhaps Major Len is new to you. Either way, you are in for a treat, as in this episode, he takes us through his life’s journey—from his salvation experience at the Salvation Army corps in Windsor, Ontario, to his retirement from active ministry last fall. He also talks about his compositional process, and we are pleased to be sharing two of his pieces as part of this episode.
Kristin Ostensen
Hi Major Len and welcome to the Salvationist podcast.
Len Ballantine
Thank you very much. Lovely to be with you.
Kristin Ostensen
Yeah. So I'm wondering if you can take us back to the very beginning. What were your earliest experiences of music?
Len Ballantine
My home was filled with music. My parents loved classical music. They were lifelong Salvationists, so singing and brass music was very much a part of our culture. My father loved opera and symphonies and piano music. So when you surround a child with that amount of music making in church, and not in church, it really shapes young lives. And both my sister and I had good musical backgrounds to grow up in.
Kristin Ostensen
Yeah, absolutely. And when did you know that you wanted to do music professionally?
Len Ballantine
This is a really interesting question because when you grow up in The Salvation Army, all of your music making is your gift to God. None of the musicians in The Salvation Army are paid. So I never grew up with a sense of, Oh, I'm going to be a professional musician, because it was just part of my gift back to God. And I don't suppose it was until I was an adult and I had to buy a quart of milk that I had to say to myself, I guess I better use my music as a way of making some money. [laughs]
Kristin Ostensen
Well, that's a good reason. And can you tell us a little bit about your spiritual journey? I mean, you mentioned you grew up in the Army.
Len Ballantine
I was seven years old. We attended all the meetings on Sunday. I remember going to the altar, the mercy seat, as a child on a Sunday evening. My mother knelt with me there. And I was just suddenly aware of the conflict of good and evil. I was aware of sin my own little life. And I often reflect on, the object of the evil that I saw in my life was my dear sister, who is my best friend now. You know, she was an older sister, and I used to torment her, I would steal her dollies. And just as a child, you just identify with the notion of what it means to be a sinner. It was an imprint on my soul that night. And I wept at the altar. And then my father, who was the bandmaster, took me to his little bandmaster office, and we had prayer there. And I consider that my salvation experience. And I've always been a person of faith, no matter what was going on in my life. And no matter how closely I was following the Lord. I've always been a believer. I've never had an issue with not believing in God, and knowing him as my Saviour.
Kristin Ostensen
So as you grew up, of course, you went to university to study music. You originally started off in piano, but then changed to composition, and then choral music. So can you tell us what led you to make that move? What was behind that evolution?
Len Ballantine
I entered university on a piano scholarship for the performance program. So the people that come out after four years of a performance piano program are expected to perform—to make recordings, to play flawlessly, to be an artist. And I knew in my inner soul, and I knew from experience, that I made mistakes, I couldn't get through anything without having a little blip. I would wait for it, as a pianist. As a child, I would wait for that moment, and I would recover and I would go on. In fact, once in a contest, in a Kiwanis festival, the adjudicator remarked on how well I quote unquote “recovered” and went on and gave me an excellent mark because—so a person who recognizes their own flaws, cannot then decide to embrace a life of playing the piano professionally. So I opted out of that and went into a common first year at university. But I still had my scholarship. So I still took lessons with some of the gifted teachers at the University of Toronto. As part of my basic first year program, I had to choose an ensemble. And because I already played brass instruments, I didn't want to spend a year or two playing my euphonium in an ensemble at the University of Toronto. I wanted to try singing. So I got involved in singing in the U of T concert choir. And my life changed. I mean, immediately. I was watching a very gifted musician, his name was Lloyd Bradshaw. And he mesmerized his students. He drew music out of them. And then he was looking at music students, so they were musical. But the power that this man had when he was conducting a rehearsal to draw the best out of people. And he painted pictures with words and he cajoled his singers and he made us feel, you know, like we wanted to sing for him. And I sat there and I said to myself, “I want to do that, I want to do that.” So that the choral music happened as a result of me changing program. But what I changed to was the composition program. And that gave me the nuts and bolts, the harmony, the counterpoint, the analysis, all of that really nerdy analytical stuff, which makes you understand what makes music what it is. To have that kind of a serious background in music, you ought to be able to look at any piece of music, pop, or opera, and figure out why it is the way it is. So that was really a gift to me because I went on to be heavily involved in contemporary music. At the time, there was no contemporary music, of the kind of we know, jazz or otherwise, at the University of Toronto. It was a very “scholarly” kind of school. So that analysis, in that that craft of music background composition gave me served me in a really good stead later on.
Kristin Ostensen
Yeah, I can see that. And of course, before you started working for the Army, you held many roles as a professional musician, even writing jingles, which must have been fun. What stands out to you as you look back on those years, and how did those experiences prepare you for ministry in the Army?
Len Ballantine
I think it gave me a really rich and diverse background, so I was flexible. I wasn't just interested in one kind of music or what made it musical. I loved it all. I love contemporary, I love jazz, I love pop. I should say I loved pop—I was never allowed to listen to pop music when I was a child. I listened on my two-transistor radio under my pillow to The Beatles in 1964. But it was not a feature of my growing up. But now, becoming educated, I began to understand why their music was as good as it was, what made it good. So I think what comes out of all that diversity is the ability to be flexible and to love the thing, the various kinds of music. And I did, in those early days of trying to buy a bottle of milk, I did everything. I played for ballet classes. I played Summer Stock music theatre, where I was the music director with me and a bass and a pair of drums, and I was experienced one, so I was called the music director of Summer Stock up in Muskoka. I played church organ work for Anglican churches and the United Church. I did any choir I could find to do. There was one group in Toronto, the Irish Choral Society of all things, were looking for a conductor so I did that for a couple of seasons. I was hungry to harness the diversity that had become my life, and I just did it all—much to the detriment of my schooling, I must say. I spent much longer doing my education than I should have because I was just giving my heart to everything that came along. It was so interesting.
Kristin Ostensen
And so how did you end up working for the Army?
Len Ballantine
As a young man, it was General Arnold Brown—or he eventually became General Arnold Brown. He was our territorial commander. And he found out that I was wrapping War Crys at the Triumph Press in Oakville. And I was buying my quarts of milk with that money. And he said, “This will never do. Let's give this guy something in music.” So I came to the music department and Colonel Bearcroft called me the national bandmaster. And I had never been in front of a band in my life. I had conducted choirs, I played the piano—I had done a lot of things, but I wasn't a bandmaster. But I knew how to do that. And, consequently, under that role, I got involved in the music making around our territory from Newfoundland to Vancouver. I went and I did special weekends, I taught groups, I entertained them. I was involved in recordings that we did. We would go to Newfoundland, and we would put the record on and we would record the local groups, and that became part of a THQ project. I became involved with the special efforts department during those early years, doing some television broadcasts with my good friend, Ian Adnams. And he was about my age and was working for special efforts. I was at the music department. And what we did together was almost clandestine because it wasn't normal for us to be involved in television work. But he had a boss that would allow him to do things. And I had a boss that would allow me to do things. So we had several occasions and several years running and then of producing a half an hour television show. And the shows went all across Canada during that Christmas period when stations are looking for free material that they can broadcast without incurring a lot of budget money. And the Army got wonderful publicity because of it. And I got to do arranging and recording and teaching contemporary stuff and writing new versions of traditional things. And all of that came, that's also part of the grist for the mill. And eventually, many years later, I actually became what you would call the national music secretary, territorial music secretary.
Kristin Ostensen
And then after you held that role, you transitioned into officership. What led you to make that leap? How did you experience the call to officership?
Len Ballantine
Always the call. Always the call. When you're a child growing up in The Salvation Army, you are aware of the call of God on your life, and your whole being is given over. You're dedicated as a child. And as a young musician, and one that was on display, people would come up, you know, well-meaning little ladies would come up and say, “You have a gift. You have to give this back to God. This is God's gift. Give him the glory.” And you can only hear that so many times before you just give into it and say, “Well, I guess that's my destiny.” But it was not a heavy weight; it was just a truth. It was just a place that I always lived. And when I met my wife, Heather, our very first conversation on our very first—it was a Sunday and we went out for a meal after the service—we spoke about officership and the sense that God had always been calling us to that kind of a life. So it was at the basis of our relationship. And as it turned out, I was involved in professional Salvation Army ministry, this time paid ministry as the national director. And my wife was involved in full-time ministry in social services and in crisis management, working with police and finding volunteers that would intervene when there's crimes. So we were both involved in full-time Salvation Army ministry, but going the opposite direction. So after a few years of married life, we looked at each other and shook our heads and said, “Let's get on the same page. Let's do something together.” So we put our names forward.
Kristin Ostensen
And you were an officer for just two years when you were appointed to lead the International Staff Songsters. Did that appointment come as a surprise to you?
Len Ballantine
It did, it was a complete surprise. I remember the day I got a call from our chief secretary—might have been the personnel secretary—but it was it was Don Kerr, Colonel Kerr. And he had been the training principal when we were at training college, so I knew him well. And he asked me what I would think about that kind of an appointment and I just began to weep. I began to weep because here was a choir that one could only dream to aspire to lead. And it had been going for 13 years, so it was a solid group. It wasn't going to be an uphill battle immediately—it was a wonderful challenge and a great honour to be asked. Yeah, I wept. We spoke about, my wife and I spoke about what it would mean to leave Canada and our families, and we had two little children at the time. And we decided this was the time, this was the opportunity, that opportunity wouldn't come around—only when somebody had to retire or died, or, you know, the leadership was—it was just one of those timing things that you really couldn't avoid. If I was ever going to get that kind of a chance it was now. I was 42, so I was an adult, I was somebody that had a lot of experience behind me. And yet, it was fearful going. I was following a dynasty, I was following the founder director who had written yards and yards of music for this group. So, I went with fear and trepidation. But it was exciting, it was humbling, and we embraced it.
Kristin Ostensen
And what were some of the highlights of that experience?
Len Ballantine
The highlight of being in the UK and working with the International Staff Songsters was to sense the depth of the Salvation Army culture within that culture. And we had the opportunity to travel all around the British Isles and into Europe, and Australia, New Zealand, during the time that I was there, and to sense the depth of the Salvation Army work in these places. Musically, working with the ISS, and bringing to them something of the modern, seeing it blossom, seeing those people who had been really accustomed to what one might have called traditional Salvation Army music of the time, to see them open up to contemporary modes of expression, contemporary turns of phrase and lyrics, rhythms that were complex and needed to be tightened orally—that's what I brought to that group, and to watch that transition happen was really exciting, a tremendous thing. I think we have this idea that British people are stiff upper lip, you know, they're tightened down, they have a lot of tradition. And that was my impression, too. But underneath, they're human beings. And when they were given the opportunity to sing material that allowed their humanity to show, which I think contemporary music does in a way that is really very different from the older styles. They were wonderful, wonderful musicians, wonderful people to be with. And it was an important experience in my life, for sure. Six years—too short. Yeah, it was a great journey.
Kristin Ostensen
Your last appointment from 2016 until you retired, of course, was leading the Canadian Staff Songsters, which was a huge pivotal moment in our territory, as no such group has existed for more than 100 years. And, of course, you played a significant role in shaping the foundations of the group. Can you talk a bit about your vision for the group? How did you hope God would use the group in our territory and beyond?
Len Ballantine
I think there has been a need for a staff songster group in this country, in our territory, for a long, long time. And I was tied up doing other things with corps work, and I really couldn't do both at the same time. So after we retired, we retired in 2015, it was a year of preparation for that group. And then in 2016, it started. And what we were mindful of was the need to light the fire of singing under our territory, to light the excitement of what it means to sing this song gospel. So wherever this group was going to go, we were going to try to make sure that the local people had a chance to sing with us and to get encouragement from that experience and excitement from that experience. Part of that is to develop leaders within the group. I’m really pleased to say that some of the younger ones, and even some of the middle-aged people, have stepped towards leadership, even in the limited time since this began and taken in charge of songster groups that their home corps and divisional singing groups in their area. But I think above all the musical considerations, we wanted to have a solid group—we wanted to have, not just the best singers, but really solid Salvationists who had a deep faith and a deep commitment to the Lord and to The Salvation Army. Because we wanted to base the continuance of the group on something solid and not something that was going to shift because we hadn't chosen wisely. So the people that have come to the group, we take great pains to make sure that not only do they have the musical talent and the ability to read and they have a nice voice, but that they're really people of heart, and this is going to be an important part of their sense of ministry and giving back to the Lord.
Kristin Ostensen
And when you look back, what were some of your most meaningful experiences as leader of the staff songsters?
Len Ballantine
Early on in our existence, we had a chance to go to the Calgary Stampede. It's a big deal for the Calgary Glenmore Temple corps every year to be a part of what's going on in that city for those days. And every year they have groups come in and people come in who will help them raise the profile of The Salvation Army. We went and one of the things that we did was sing in the open air on a little street in the middle of Calgary, and then the Stampede band, which was I think mostly Glenmore Temple bandsman, they played and we sang—we were side by side, there was a little PA system. And we just sang. We gave out Scripture. We said a few words of introduction to a song. And we stood on the street and we sang for an hour and a half, in the heat. I can’t remember if we had our Stetsons on—maybe we did. But it was really precious because the people—I mean, it was big. I mean, Stampede Week, everybody's milling around and walking around on the streets. And they stopped and listened. They were curious. It felt like we were doing something which could not be done at any other time. We were releasing into the air sounds of praise of Jesus and people were listening. And on an ordinary day, they wouldn't. But because it was Stampede week, they were looking for the next thrill. Not unlike Victorian England when the Army went out on the streets and played their tambourine and did silly things to attract attention. The streets was where people were entertained. I think we also of Christmas With The Salvation Army each year. It's colourful, it's warm. When the group gets to sing, there's decorations all around, and we're lifting carols and we've got special arrangements of seasonal songs and pop songs, and the organ and the band and—it's really thrilling. And if you've ever sat amongst 3,000 people and sung O Come All Ye Faithful to an organ and a brass band and a hot choir, you'll know how exciting it can be.
Kristin Ostensen
Yeah, absolutely. Of course, most of your appointments have been music related, but you've also served as a corps officer. How would you compare those experiences of officership?
Len Ballantine
When we left England, we brought something with us, and it was having had the experience of going to Holy Trinity Brompton, in the centre of London, and doing the Alpha Leaders Course. And we went to the corps at Westminster Park in London as their officers and stayed for four years. And during that time, we did Alpha. And it changed us, it changed the corps. All the things that Alpha needs to accomplish or can accomplish happened—the communal meal, the innocent worship, hands-on prayer, excellent teaching, expectation that God would show up and be part of what happened. So it all blends into a wonderful richness that can only be called the plan of God. Is there differences to being a musician in the Army and being a corps officer? Yeah. But for us, it was a straight line. We came back from that experience, wanting to put this to work. We came back from England wanting to put Alpha to work and wanting to minister to people. Most officers would tell you that the best job in the world is being a corps officer. I might not agree with that entirely because I've had such wonderful, superlative experiences as a musician. But since communication is really my stock and trade—verbally and musically—there was a meeting place in my skills which allowed me to float from being in front of people primarily to teach and to lead, as opposed to being in front of people to make music.
Kristin Ostensen
And you're very well known for being in front of people and leading music. But of course you're also a composer. Can you tell us a little bit about your compositional process?
Len Ballantine
I think of composing like adding ingredients to a funnel and shaking them all together and having something drop out the bottom that is the result. That's the way I approached my jingle writing back in the day. Who's this for? When it's going to be used? Who are you trying to attract? Whose attention? What musical ingredients will allow you to do that? But, above all, I have to imagine where this is going to be used and why it's being used, what it has to accomplish. I'm a very lazy composer. I never write for no reason. Never. I have to have a reason and that informs everything that goes into it. And if I'm asked to write a song for the cadets—and I've done several over the years, many of them, some of them are published—OK, cadets. OK, heart. Yeah, this is my theme song, you know. And then you take their sessional name and you look for a Scripture that kind of brings that name into reality, and the whole process of writing music is related to what has to be accomplished. Who's going to sing it? Where's it going to be used? And then you pray into it. You pray into it for an inspiration, for the Spirit of God to be the amanuensis, the heart of the business of getting it onto the page. If it's hard work, I scrunch it up and throw it in the basket. “I got a little idea and I got to make it work”—throw it away. It's not ready to sit on the page yet. It's got to have some breath behind it. If it doesn't have the breath, it gets too hard and I know it's no good. It'll be just for itself. If you're parsing it so closely that it's got to stack up in all these ways and you're just massaging the technicalities and the formal ingredients and you're not allowing the Spirit to blow through it. So I throw it away. I can show you a piece of paper lying on my floor right now that didn't make it yesterday because it was too hard, it didn't belong.
Kristin Ostensen
That's very interesting. In terms of the ones that did make it, what would you say is your favourite composition and what makes it meaningful for you?
Len Ballantine
I usually say in answer to this question: the last one. Whatever I wrote the last time I sat there. Because I have to love what I do. I have to love it. If I don't love it, then it's not finished. When I'm finished, I've given it everything I can. I've turned every stone. Every note leads where it should, every word. If you asked me, I would just pick one, and it probably would be a song, Whom Have I in Heaven, But You? It's from the Psalms. And I think it's my favourite because it's kind of whimsical. Can you imagine this guy standing in the dusty Mesopotamian plain and wondering about God at a time before religion had a format? Whom have I in heaven, but you? And this piece is Scripture, but it goes on a little harmonic wandering—it doesn't stay in the same key all the time. And I think it suggests some of life's journey—turmoil, change, adapting, drought, storm—but it comes home again. Whom have I in heaven, but you? At the moment in the piece where the tonality coalesces again in the main key, I was looking for a way home tonally. I was looking for a way of coming back from the wandering, the tonal wandering, and finding my way back to the right key. And I didn't know how to do it. I was playing with one note at a time to see where it would lead, which is something you can do when you've got 10 fingers and you're playing a chord—you can move one note and listen. And when this moment that I'm trying to describe was born, it was like—Ah, ah. It wasn't a formula. It wasn't a cadence that I had learned. It was a journey that I was taken to practice, as I wandered my way back. But it was a moment when I was aware of the blessing of the creative spirit of God.
[Music: Whom Have I in Heaven, But You?]
Kristin Ostensen
That was the International Staff Songsters singing Major Len Ballantine’s Whom Have I in Heaven, But You?
So, with the benefit of decades of experience, what would you say is most essential to music ministry? And how would you describe your approach or your philosophy?
Len Ballantine
I’m a songwriter, so I guess the combination of words, the fact that words mean thoughts, concrete thoughts, that are compelling, and there's nothing clearer than a human being singing a lyric with harmony and rhythm, and the nuances of accompaniment, lifting the thoughts—there's nothing clearer to a person in terms of conveying the gospel, conveying emotion. So I would say, to me, the most important thing is making sure that heart is present in those thoughts. Music is about heart, mind and soul—the best way of getting at it is vocal music.
Kristin Ostensen
And what message would you like to share with Army musicians today?
Len Ballantine
“When the music fades, and all is stripped away, I simply come, longing to bring something that's of worth that will bless your heart. I’ll bring you more than a song for a song in itself is not what you have required. You search much deeper within, through the way things appear. You're looking into my heart. I’m coming back to the heart of worship. It's all about you, Jesus; all about you.” These are the thoughts of Matt Redman. When the music thing is not there, what's left? And so it should be—it should be our hearts that are crying out to God, our prayers through music, our aspirations through music. It’s the thing that we do corporately. That's why the staff songsters are relevant—as you can see the humanity bringing Scripture alive and see it on their faces; you can hear it in the sounds of their own breath. Yeah, that's what I would say to musicians and to worshippers. It can't ever be perfunctory. It comes from the heart.
Kristin Ostensen
That's a really good reminder, as we wrap up. So, thank you so much for your time today. It's been such a wonderful, illuminating conversation. I’m really grateful. And as we wrap up, I'm wondering, what song would you like to leave our listeners with?
Len Ballantine
I think the piece that is played the most would be the setting I did for Shenandoah, the melody Shenandoah. And it was written in Britain for a big festival where we had an American group with musicians and singers coming, and we wanted to transition from a really glitzy opening on a big Royal Albert Hall program to prayer. And I scoured the song book for a set of words that would go to a well-known American tune. That Shenandoah is usually thought of as an American folk tune about that river. And when you combine that with the words, “ ’mid all the traffic of the ways,” you find a place of solace, a place of hiding, a place of secret prayer. That probably is the arrangement that most people would know and associate with my name.
Kristin Ostensen
Wonderful. So, thank you again.
Len Ballantine
You’re welcome.
[Music: Mid All the Traffic (Shenandoah)]
Kristin Ostensen
That was Mid All the Traffic, a setting of Shenandoah performed by the International Staff Songsters. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Salvationist podcast. For more episodes, visit Salvationist.ca/podcast.