The daughter of two musicians, (her father was a bassoon player and her mother a pianist) Ellen grew up with music in her blood. But she didn’t begin her professional career in music. It was the creative challenge of advertising that first called to her, where she became a Creative Director at Ogilvy & Mather. But her love affair with Brasil — its language, its people, its culture, and its music — was powerful, and in 1998 she left advertising to form her own company, Cantaloupe Music Productions, which combined her various passions: music, writing, and Brasil — and sharing her enthusiasm with others through her marketing experience.

Today, Ellen lives in New York City, speaks fluent Portuguese, visits Brasil regularly, and when she’s not listening to Brasilian music of all kinds — from roots samba to “choro novo”, she’s likely to be found in a New York City jazz club. She also loves classical music, opera — in fact almost any music that’s honest and acoustic — and she lives by her company slogan: “We believe in live music.”