Finding Ellen: The Remarkable Life Of Ellen Ballon, Canadian Concert Pianist

Ellen was the author's great-aunt, who died when he was sixteen years old. She was arguably Canada's best-known pianist internationally prior to Glenn Gould. Now a forgotten figure, she had a dazzling concert career, a glittering social life, and a sizzling private life. The research in writing her biography took Goldbloom into archives across England, Canada, the United States and Brazil, as well as into private letters and diaries that informed the resulting story. Television performances by Ellen in the United States and Canada, unseen in the 70 years since their initial live broadcasts, have been unearthed. Her LP recordings have been digitized. But her extraordinary story, part of Canada's musical, social, and Jewish heritage, remains largely unknown. AUTHOR: David Goldbloom was born in Montreal and raised in Quebec and Nova Scotia. He completed an honours degree, majoring in Government, at Harvard University and then attended the University of medicine and psychiatry at McGill University and is a Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. He is the co-author with Dr. Pier Bryden of the bestselling book How Can I Help? A Week in My Life as a Psychiatrist (Simon and Schuster, 2016), now also available in French and Mandarin. His latest book is We Can Do Better: Urgent Innovations to Improve Mental Health Access and Care ( Simon & Schuster, 2021). Dr. Goldbloom is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21; he is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Royal Conservatory of Music as well as past Chair of the Board of Governors of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival of Canada. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada.