Violinist pair instrumental in students’ string success

When Vero native Jake Owen, the pop country singer, got married on the beach a few years back, it was the Ballingers who played for the ultra-private ceremony that took place at the crack of dawn. So secretive were the bride and groom that when the Ballingers got the call to play, the wedding planner didn’t even tell them who they’d be playing for. “She just told us to be there at 6 a.m. – on a Monday morning,” says Nicole, laughing.

“I had to get permission from my principal to be a little late to school,” says Richard.
And when a lone paparazzo showed up on the shoreline, the Ballingers ducked inside with the rest of the wedding party.
Cue the violins: Every parent knows the moments. From a baby’s first steps to the walk up the aisle, Richard and Nicole Ballinger have positioned themselves to provide the musical accompaniment, not only teaching the youngest children, but performing at their most sentimental ceremonies.
In his 14 years in Indian River County public schools, Richard Ballinger estimates he has taught strings to thousands of kids, dividing his teaching time between Oslo and Storm Grove middle schools, in addition to giving private lessons.
As Richard Ballinger funnels his students into the acclaimed orchestra program at Vero Beach High School, his wife Nicole is prepping batches of babies for future music-making through the Kindermusik program, offered at Vero’s Leisure Square. Nicole Ballinger got her training through the national program, first by taking online courses and then meeting in Orlando for a four-day seminar. Last week she taught an introductory class to what will be her second group of budding instrumentalists, leading a half-dozen babies and toddlers and their parents through the fundamentals of music-making.

“Babies are born having heard their mother’s heartbeat. Internally they have rhythm. They’re moving to a beat,” she says. “When we move with them, play music and use ASL (American sign language), it engages their entire brain. You touch all the domains that they need to learn in: physical, emotional, social and cognitive.”
Perched on their parents’ knees or scooching around on a room-size rubber mat, the babies and toddlers, who ranged in age from 6 months to 3 years, caught on quickly to Nicole’s prompts. Most watched raptly as Nicole passed out various shakeable, bangable noisemakers, including bead-filled hula hoops and plastic tambourines, and, using song, delivered various prompts to follow. Rattles and triangles were traded and demanded, the earliest hint at future battles for first chair.
As the 45-minute class drew to a close, Richard Ballinger was making the trek across town from Oslo to Storm Grove, where his chamber students were assembled in the school’s spacious music room. With his time divided between two schools, Ballinger’s string classes have swollen to as many as 70 kids per class. “I delegate,” he says, when asked how he maintains order. “The section leaders are in charge, just as they are in a real orchestra.”
In any moments of chaos, Richard takes inspiration from his own middle-school strings teacher in Lakeland, who also shuttled between schools and managed to create an excellent orchestra program there. He went on to earn a B.A. in music performance from Florida Southern College.
It was just as he was preparing to graduate that he met his future wife. Originally from Rhode Island, Nicole had moved to Jupiter with her family at age 9. She and Richard had driven with separate groups of mutual friends to a swing dance in Orlando. Several dances in, Richard saw Nicole standing by the dance floor. “Why haven’t you danced yet?” he asked. She answered: “Because you haven’t asked me yet.”
The Ballingers are part of Florida’s tight-knit community of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Once they married, in 2001, they began to minister to the Haitian community in Fort Pierce, learning Creole in addition to French. Eventually that mission brought them to Vero Beach.