At sixteen, my world revolved around several priorities: getting my driver's license on my actual birthday, going out with girls as often as possible, and practicing piano. Unlike driving and dating, I reached a level of keyboard proficiency after ten years of classical lessons where playing had become pleasurable for me and tolerable for others within earshot. Little did I know that a simple family errand that summer of my sixteenth year would plant the seed for a discovery that would unfold decades later.
The call came from Uncle Ted, the widower of my great-aunt Ellen Ballon, who had just died. My parents were asked to send me to New York to help pack up her apartment. To my teenage self, Aunt Ellen was just another elderly relative, her age and accomplishments a complete mystery to me. I would have guessed her age then at "I dunno, 90?" when in reality, she was in her 60s, younger than I am now.
Stepping into her New York apartment, with its elegant two-story picture window overlooking Central Park, I felt the first inkling that Aunt Ellen might have been more than just a regular great-aunt. The walls adorned with her portraits and the grand piano hinted at a life less ordinary. My curiosity was piqued further when Uncle Ted took me to Ellen's sprawling 100-acre Connecticut farm, complete with a tennis court, swimming pool and outdoor sculptures by Sir Jacob Epstein.
I began to listen to her recordings, and my father, sensing my growing interest, passed on old concert posters and letters. Yet, the full extent of Ellen's extraordinary life remained elusive, tucked away in the recesses of family history.
It wasn't until my retirement in 2022, after a long career as a psychiatrist and author, that I embarked on the journey to unravel the enigma of Ellen Ballon. As I delved into archives in England, Canada, the United States and Brazil, and as I perused yellowed newspaper clippings, a portrait emerged of a woman whose talent and tenacity had taken her from early 20th century Montreal to the heights of classical music stardom.
I discovered a child prodigy who graduated from the McGill Conservatorium of Music at eight, performed for U.S. Presidents and British royalty, played with the great orchestras of North America and Europe, and commissioned Brazil's greatest composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos, to write a concerto for her. Ellen's scrapbooks revealed sixty years of a career that spanned continents, her fame reaching far beyond the cities she visited.
Most intriguing to me were the private, unpublished materials I uncovered— diaries and letters that painted a more nuanced portrait of this virtuosic and complex artist. I found a woman who lived life on her own terms, moving in circles that included famous writers, conductors, and political figures. Her unconventional personal life, quietly accepted but never discussed in our family, added layers to the aunt I thought I knew. Before she married, she lived in an intimate trio with a female sculptor and male poet, both successful artists in their own right, in London and then in New York. Her numerous affairs even included one with the obstetrician who delivered me.
Each discovery transported me back in time to an era when classical music performances garnered major newspaper coverage and a young woman from Montreal could captivate audiences worldwide. The glamorous, unorthodox life of Ellen Ballon stood in stark contrast to the elderly great-aunt I remembered from my youth.
As I pieced together her story, I realized that the seed planted during that teenage summer had finally blossomed. The boy who once sat beneath Aunt Ellen's portrait in her New York apartment, blissfully unaware of her legacy, had grown into the older man who wanted to tell her extraordinary tale. In uncovering her story, I found not just a subject for a book, but a bridge connecting my past to my present, my family history to a forgotten era of musical greatness. Finishing the manuscript completed an extraordinary journey for me through her life, her art, and her world—and gives me hope that she will be remembered.
David’s new book Finding Ellen can be preordered here.
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