Ellen Ballon, a Canadian piano prodigy, conquered the world's greatest stages and played for three US presidents
Ellen Ballon was one of Canada's most outstanding pianists of the 20th century. Born in Montreal in 1898, the daughter of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants, she showed extraordinary talent as a child. At the age of five she was already giving public recitals and at six she entered the McGill Conservatory, where she was awarded the director's first scholarship.
After a farewell recital at the Royal Victoria College (1906), she moved to New York to study with Rafael Joseffy and Rubin Goldmark. At the age of 11 he made his debut with the New York Symphony Orchestra conducted by Walter Damrosch, performing Beethoven and Mendelssohn. He later studied with Josef Hofmann (Switzerland/New York) and Wilhelm Backhaus (Vienna).
He performed with top orchestras such as the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. In 1912 she played at the White House at the invitation of President William H. Taft, and repeated before Franklin D. Roosevelt (1934) and Dwight D. Eisenhower (1954). In 1936 she gave a private recital at Kensington Palace for Princess Beatrice and Princess Helena Victoria.
In 1945 he commissioned from Heitor Villa-Lobos his Piano Concerto No. 1, which he premiered in Rio de Janeiro (1946) under the composer's baton. Subsequently, he gave the premieres in the United States and Canada, contributing to the diffusion of Latin American music.
In 1928 he created a piano scholarship at McGill University and in the 1950s he promoted lecture series with figures such as Gian Carlo Menotti and Lotte Lehmann. In 1954 he received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from McGill. The pianist Arthur Rubinstein defined her as "the greatest pianistic genius" he knew.
In 1954, she married Colonel Théodore-Lafleur Bullock. She died in Montreal in 1969, at the age of 71. Her bust by Sir Jacob Epstein and her archives (Dalhousie University) preserve her memory.
