Sheila Bromberg

Sheila Bromberg (2 September 1928 – 17 August 2021) was a British harpist who performed in both classical and popular settings. She is best known for playing on the Beatles’ song "She's Leaving Home" on their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Early life Sheila Zelda Patricia Bromberg was born on 2 September 1928 in London, England, the daughter of Michael Bromberg and Rose Lyons. Her father was an orchestral viola player of Russian descent who had played with the Scottish National Orchestra and her mother was a seamstress. Her family was Jewish. Her son was also an orchestral musician. and became an accomplished pianist. She studied the harp with Gwendolen Mason at London’s Royal College of Music, where she graduated in 1949. At the age of 70 she received a degree from the University of Greenwich in music therapy.

In March 1967 Bromberg, then a single mother with two small children, was hired at Abbey Road studios in London to play harp on the recording of "She's Leaving Home", one of the songs on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. This made her the second woman to perform on a Beatles song, the first having been Joy Hall, mistakenly credited as "John" Hall, who a number of weeks earlier had played cello on "Strawberry Fields Forever". Bromberg and the orchestra went through three hours of takes until midnight, and when the album came out she realized McCartney had used her first take. Bromberg was an orchestra regular on the highly rated British television show Morecambe and Wise. She performed in many TV commercials as well as in a Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch, in which she played the harp in a wheelbarrow. In 2013, aged 84, she was living and teaching music in the village of Lane End, Buckinghamshire.

Personal life Bromberg married Sydney Laurence in 1949 after graduating. They later divorced. She had two children, Naomi Venables and David Laurence, and five grandchildren. Her cousin is the American musician and songwriter David Bromberg.

Death Bromberg died on August 17, 2021, in Aylesbury, England.