His teachers were Otto Gombosi, Curt Sachs, Gustave Reese and George Herzog, and he took private composition lessons with Darius Milhaud.
Among his course offerings that first year was a seminar, unusual for the time, on Claudio Monteverdi, culminating in a performance of Il ballo delle ingrate in the courtyard of the Fogg Art Museum.
[4] Upon retirement John Ward concentrated his energies on building and curating an important collection for Harvard University.
"[6]: 56 Subjects with particularly strong representation in the Ward Collection are music of the French Revolution, the King's Theatre and the Strauss family.
His papers are housed at Harvard University's Houghton Library, where two staff members are employed full-time to catalog Ward Collection materials.