Winifred Bambrick

Who was Winifred Bambrick?

Winifred Estella Bambrick was a Canadian classical musician and novelist.

Born in Ottawa, Ontario and raised in Chelsea, Quebec, Bambrick made her debut as a harpist at New York City's Aeolian Hall on October 22, 1913. The following year, she recorded a number of selections for Edison Records' Diamond Disc series, including Robert Ambrose's "One Sweetly Solemn Thought", Gabriel Verdalle's "Vision" and Angelo Francis Pinto's "Tarantelle". She subsequently played in John Philip Sousa's band from 1920 to 1930, and then spent the 1930s performing as a solo artist and with a circus orchestra in Europe.

Her experience in Europe, which coincided with the events that would lead to World War II, inspired the novel Continental Revue, which was published in 1946 and won that year's Governor General's Award for English language fiction. The novel was co-written with Canadian author Edmund Fancott, but his name was not included in the published edition. Her second novel, The Lasting Spring, was reportedly completed in 1947 but was never published.

Suffering from emphysema, she gave up public performance around 1960, and spent the remainder of her life living in Montreal and Sept-Îles.