Robert Ballard

1. Robert Ballard (ca. 1572 or 1575, probably in Paris – after 1650) was a prominent French lutenist and composer. His father, Robert Ballard Senior (ca. 1527-1588) was the head of the well-known music publishers, "Le Roy and Ballard", founded in 1551 with cousin Adrian Le Roy (a notable virtuoso lutenist and composer of the period). From 1612 he entered the service of the French Regent, Maria de Medici, and was tutor to the young King Louis XIII, becoming a lutenist and composer (musicien ordinaire du roi) at the royal court in 1618. He published two books of lute works - Premier Livre de tablature de luth (1611) and Diverses Pièces mises sur le luth (1614). 2. Robert Duane Ballard (born June 30, 1942 in Wichita, Kansas) is a former commander in the United States Navy and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater archaeology. He is most famous for the discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic in 1985, the battleship Bismarck in 1989, and the wreck of the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in 1998. Most recently he discovered the wreck of John F. Kennedy's PT-109 in 2002 and visited the Solomon Islander natives who saved its crew. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.