Renée-Paule Gauthier
 Renée-Paule Gauthier was concertmaster of the Orchestre de la Francophonie Canadienne in 2002 and 2003 and also of the New World Symphony in Miami, Florida. She obtained a Bachelor of Music from the University of Montreal, and a Master of Music from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. She performs regularly as both a soloist and chamber musician for several concert series and chamber music festivals such as the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, Jeunesses Musicales du Canada and the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, which she helped organize in 2007. She is also artistic director of the Rendez-vous musical de Laterrière. She can be heard regularly on CBC Radio and Radio-Canada. Since 2004, Renée-Paule has been playing with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa. She takes up her new position as interim assistant concertmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra in September 2009.
ca. 1700 Taft Stradivari violin
This fine 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. An anonymous donor purchased the instrument in May 2000 and lent it to the Canada Council in September 2003. It is valued at an estimated $4 million.
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