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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Her constant companion a cello worth $8 million

By: Kevin Rollason

Posted: 11/28/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

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Rachel Mercer rehearses with Vadim Makhovsky and her 313-year-old Stradivarius cello. (WAYNE.GLOWACKI@FREEPRESS.MB.CA )

RACHEL Mercer's travelling companion takes a seat on a plane, stays in her hotel room and goes to work with her.

Mind you, when your companion is a 313-year-old cello worth $8 million, there's good reason to be inseparable.

Mercer's sidekick for the last two months is a cello on loan to her for three years from the Canada Council for the Arts.

"I treat it the same way I treat my own cello," Mercer said Friday before practising in preparation for her concert tonight with the Aviv String Quartet.

"My own instrument is the tool I need. I need it to arrive in good condition. I even buy a seat on the airplane for it. I wouldn't trust it in the baggage hold. After all, you can lose your clothing... but you can't buy a cello in the mall."

The quartet -- and, of course, the cello --will perform at the Rady Jewish Community Centre at 8 p.m.

The 1696 Bonjour Antonio Stradivarius cello is one of many created by Stradivari in the late 1600s and early 1700s in Italy.

The instrument is one of only 60 cellos built by him still around.

According to the Canada Council for the Arts Instrument Bank, the cello was loaned to it by the same donor -- who wishes to remain anonymous -- that donated its 1689 Baumgartner Stradivari violin and its 1779 Salabue Guadagnini violin.

The cello was named after Abel Bonjour, an amateur Parisian cellist who owned it until he died around 1885.

The cello has had several owners through the decades, including the Habisreutinger Foundation in Switzerland and Martin Lovett of the Amadeus Quartet, but the owner who loaned it to the Canada Council bought it in 1999.

Mercer said she was given a list of conditions for its care by the Canada Council, but in the end "we just have to be responsible and use common sense."

"I keep it in a safe place. And you think of the owner and the people who will play it in the future."

A safe place includes buying a seat on the plane for her fellow passenger.

"At least I buy a seat. The other musicians (who have violins and violas) bring them on the plane and if it's full, they find they have trouble finding space overhead."

As for taking the cello across Canada at the beginning of winter, Mercer said "they say if you feel OK, it's OK too."

"If it goes to extreme temperatures, they say let it adjust to the room temperature before playing. But it's also been around for awhile so it has been through a lot."

Mercer was born in Edmonton and is now based in Toronto. She began playing the cello at three in Edmonton and has degrees from the University of Toronto, the New England Conservatory and a solo diploma from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam.

Mercer joined the Aviv String Quartet in 2002.

The string quartet was founded in Israel in 1997, and has won first prize in chamber music competitions in France, Austria, Netherlands and Australia. It was also named Best Young Ensemble by the culture ministries in Germany and Israel.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 28, 2009 A3

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