September 25, 2006 -

Ottawa, Canada -- NAC Orchestra violinist Jessica Linnebach has won the loan of the 1700 Taft Stradivari violin valued at $2.4 million in the Canada Council’s Musical Instrument Bank national competition held this week.

Created in 1985, the Musical Instrument Bank acquires through donations and loans fine stringed instruments that now have a total value of more than $18 million Canadian. Through the competition these instruments are loaned to gifted young Canadian musicians to help further their international solo or chamber music careers. Winners of this year’s competition were awarded the use of their instruments for a three-year period.

Jessica Linnebach has been a member of the violin section of the National Arts Centre Orchestra since 2003. Jessica first participated in the National Arts Centre’s Young Artists Programme in 1999 at the age of 16. In October 2000, Pinchas Zukerman invited her to join the National Arts Centre Orchestra as guest soloist on the Orchestra’s historic tour of the Middle East and Europe. Since her debut at the age of seven, the Edmonton-born musician has appeared with leading orchestras across North America including those of Philadelphia, Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. Accepted to the world-renowned Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at the age of ten, Jessica remains one of the youngest ever Bachelor of Music graduates in the 75-year history of the school. At nineteen, she received her Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music in New York City where she studied with Pinchas Zukerman and Patinka Kopec. Jessica is a member of the Zukerman ChamberPlayers, a string quintet including Pinchas Zukerman that has completed highly acclaimed tours of festivals in Canada, the U.S. and Europe in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006.

The Taft Stradivari violin is a characteristic example of the early part of Antonio Stradivari’s “Golden Period”. It is traditionally said to have been in the possession of Albert Caressa, Paris, who passed it to Rudolf Wurlitzer in Cincinnati, Ohio. Around 1915, Mr. Wurlitzer sold the violin to Mrs. Charles Phelps Taft, one of the founders of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and wife of the Cincinnati philanthropist Charles P. Taft, brother of William Howard Taft, 37th President and 10th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Mrs. Taft presented the violin to Emil Heermann, the concertmaster of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, for his use. Following the death of Mr. Taft, the violin was sold to the private collector and amateur violinist Ernest Ruder of Cincinnati in 1940, where it remained until 1987, at which point it was sold by Jacques Français to another owner. The anonymous donor purchased the instrument, in May 2000 and lent it to the Canada Council in September 2003. It is valued at an estimated $2.4 million.

The winners of the Canada Council’s Musical Instrument Bank national competition. were selected by a peer assessment committee consisting of Walter Homburger, a Toronto-based agent and former managing director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra; Isolde Lagacé, director of the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal; and internationally-acclaimed violinist Andrew Dawes. The committee evaluated all applications – which included recordings of the applicants’ playing – and selected finalists who were invited to come to Glenn Gould Studio for auditions and interviews.

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For further information:
Jane Morris, Communications Officer,
National Arts Centre Orchestra
(613) 947-7000, ext. 335
jmorris@nac-cna.ca

Donna Balkan, Public Affairs,
Research and Communications, Canada Council
(613) 566-4305 or 1-800-263-5588, ext. 4134
donna.balkan@canadacouncil.ca