Rare instruments in action at the Montreal Chamber Music Festival

A series of exquisite, expensive, and very very old instruments willbe gracing Montreal's stages this week.

That's because winners of Canada Council's Musical Instrument Bank competition will be performing at the Montreal Chamber Music Festival.

The Canada Council's Musical Instrument Bank (MIB) loans violins and cellos for three years to deserving young musicians across the country. But it's not easy to acquire one of these instruments, most of which are hundreds of years old. Some are worthmillions of dollars.

In order to secure this prestigious loan, violinists and cellists competehead-to-head.

Two rounds of applications, including an interview in Toronto in front of a 5-member jury, yields a group of 21 top musicians. Each of these 21 takes home an instrument, which they cart to everything from daily practices to performances in Carnegie Hall.

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Even though it's a gruelling process, an instrument of this caliber is essential for a professional musician.

Nun Mlik, a Montreal-based winner, explains that for a classical musician, after a certain point,the quality of their instrument canindicate their prestige as a musician.

Mlik received a ca. 1750 Carlo Ferdinando Landolfi violin from the MIB. Like most musicians though, she also owns her own violin. But that instrument doesn't cut it.

"It's like having 3 colours, compared to having 65 colours to draw with," she told CBC Daybreak, describing the difference between her own instrument and the Landolfi.

Chan Lee, a recent Schulich School of Music graduate, is among the 21 winners of the competition. Lee received a 1768 Miller Januarius Gagliano violin on loan.

Lee has had few opportunities to play on a violin of this caliber. Still, he only needed to play a couple notes to tell the quality of his new instrument.

"You know when you get really good chocolate? It's kind of marble-y. That's what it reminded me of," he told CBC Daybreak, describing the first time he played the Gagliano.

Emmanuel Vukovich is a recipient of the ca. 1700 Bell Giovanni Tononi violin this year, but also won the last round of the MIB contest. Vukovich explains that while these instruments are all incredible, they're also incredibly different.

"They're all like people. They're all people that are 300 years old. Every one is a universe unto its own," he said.

Maintaining the quality of these instruments is also a feat.

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Older instruments are sensitive to humidity and temperature change, which makes Montreal summers, and the shifts in temperature of Montreal winters, difficult to handle. Playing the instruments additionally requires finding the perfect balance of pressure, as older violins tend to need the sound coaxed out of them. Lee encapsulates these challenges in his description of the Gagliano.

"It's an Italian princess," he says.

The violins are also not cheap. Lee's Gagliano is valued at $375,000, Mlik's Landolfi also at $375,000, and Vukovich's Tononi at $275,000.

These old, expensive beauties will be in action all week at the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, held at venues throughout the city. All winners will also be closing the festival with the "Sounds like Strads" concert, Sunday June 19th at 3 p.m. in Pollack Hall.