Announcing the Music In the Air Exhibit
The South Dakota Hall of Fame is honored to celebrate and share the legacies of Inductees who elevated and created music in South Dakota.
The new Music In the Air exhibit in the South Dakota Hall of Fame’s Visitor & Education Center in Chamberlain, SD features inductees who have built a lasting and vibrant impact through music, and we are excited to showcase the way they changed the landscape of South Dakota throughout the state.
The arts are deeply important in our communities, and they bring people together, no matter their walks of life. Music has strong roots in our state, from traditional Lakota songs to museums of priceless instruments and the state symphony; communities have been enriched and elevated through music.
Scroll below to read about the amazing inductees featured in this exhibit. We invite you to visit this exhibit in person at our Visitor & Education Center located in Chamberlain South Dakota. Click here for more information and hours of operation.
White Eagle: Breaking Boundaries in the World of Opera
White Eagle, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, was determined at an early age that he wanted to become an opera singer. At the age of five, this minister's son gave his first public performance in his father's church. In 1971, he made his professional debut as a soloist at one of the nation's largest churches and two years later began working with the vocal group Re-Generation. Over the next eight years, White Eagle performed more than 4,000 concerts to some five million people in the U.S. and Canada. He became the first Native American to sing leading roles in both opera and American musical theater. In January 1989, White Eagle sang at the inaugural gala for newly elected President George Bush.
Kyle Evans: An Icon in Western Music
Kyle Evans spent more than 20 years in the music industry as an entertainer and recording artist. He recorded in Nashville, TN, as well as produced and composed his own albums. He also had his own publishing company in Wessington Springs. Evans headlined at cowboy poetry gatherings and played over 600 professional rodeo performances across the U.S. since 1981, as well as hundreds of rodeo dances and thousands of one-niters prior to 1981. Evans appeared with Lawrence Welk in 1969 and was on many country music shows with artists such as Sylvia, Kitty Wells, Hank Thompson, Tex Ritter, Don Gibson, Skeeter Davis, and more.
Delta David Gier: Bringing People Together Through Music
Delta David Gier has been music director of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra (SDSO) since 2004, and the orchestra has been lauded for its programming under his direction. Delta David has conducted the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony, among others. The Lakota Music Project was developed under Delta David’s direction to address racial tensions in the region the SDSO serves, which explores the role music plays in their respective cultures, seeking to engender understanding and healing in the community. Most recently his work was featured in an article in the New Yorker, where the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra was hailed as one of the boldest orchestras in America.
Click here to listen to The South Dakota Symphony perform under the direction of Delta David Gier.
André Larson: Creator of a World Class Collection Celebrating Music
Along with owning and operating the Larson Music Company, a retail music store in Brookings, SD, André Larson was hired in 1972 as the first director of The Shrine to Music Museum (later renamed the National Music Museum). The Museum was founded as a nonprofit institution by the University of South Dakota and the Board of Trustees of The Shrine to Music Museum, Inc. André conceptualized, articulated, and implemented plans for the development of the Museum. He focused on the development of the Museum's collections, the ultimate measure of a museum's greatness, with the goal of creating the preeminent institution of its kind in the world.
Johanna Meier: A Lifelong Dedication to Music
Johanna Meier was born in Chicago, while her parents were touring with the famed Black Hills Passion Play production, which her father brought to America from Germany in 1932. She made her stage debut at the age of five weeks and grew up touring with the company all over the United States and Canada, and in the Passion Play’s permanent Amphitheater in Spearfish, South Dakota, where the play has been presented annually since 1939. Upon her parents’ retirement in 1991, she became the director and co-producer with her husband, Guido Della Vecchia. The closing of the Black Hills Passion Play was in 2008, after a run of 70 years in Spearfish.
Bill Russell: A Renowned Broadway Playwright
In 1980, Bill Russell made his Off-Broadway writing debut with Fortune (music by Ronald Melrose). The show ran for 241 performances and was subsequently performed around the country. After huge success Off-Broadway, Russell made his Broadway debut with Side Show. Russell received a Tony nomination for Best Book and shared one for Best Score. The show also received a nomination for Best Musical. The original cast recording was released by Sony Classics. A Broadway revival in 2014, directed by Oscar-winning screenwriter and director Bill Condon, received great critical acclaim and five Drama Desk nominations, including Best Musical Revival.
Lawrence Welk: A Midwest Entertainment Legend
For decades, Lawrence Welk and his Champagne Music Makers entertained millions of Americans each Saturday night. The affable emcee and musician was born March 11, 1903 in Strasburg, ND. Welk learned to play the accordion - and the polka music of his heritage - at a young age. At the age of 21, Welk left the family farm to pursue his dreams of a career in music. He began his professional broadcasting career at the WNAX radio station in Yankton, SD. Here, Welk’s band was the station band. Now, more than four decades since the show’s first broadcast, reruns of the Lawrence Welk Show air on Public Television networks across the United States. Welk retired in 1982, and the reruns began in 1987. They are more popular today than when they first aired.