CREDIT: Darren Stone, Times Colonist Pinchas Zukerman performs with a bow made by Michael Vann at the Royal Theatre last Thursday.

A Victoria bow maker, who revelled in the recent virtuoso performance of violinist Pinchas Zukerman at the Royal Theatre, got the shock of his life immediately afterwards, when he went backstage.

"During the performance I was admiring the quality of sound coming out of Pinchas' bow, and after the concert I was flabbergasted to hear he had been using one of mine," said Michael Vann, an internationally renowned craftsman whose bows sell for as much as $10,000.

He is luthier-in-residence at the Victoria Conservatory of Music.

"My wife and I have known Amanda (Forsyth) for years and years," said Vann, speaking of Zukerman's wife and the solo cellist at last week's concert by the National Arts Centre Orchestra.

"I owed her a bow, so I took a box full of all my bows to the masterclass she was teaching earlier that day. I left them there for her to try."

After the concert that evening, Vann and his wife went backstage to visit Amanda Forsyth and see if she had chosen a bow.

"When we got there she said: By the way, what did you think of Pinchas' playing? I said it was fabulous, and then she said: You know he was playing on one of your bows."

"The only other time something like that ever happened to me was in 1985 when Ruggiero Ricci, a famous violinist from the 1950s-1980s bought a bow from me on a Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. and played it that evening with the Edmonton Symphony."

Zukerman has since bought the bow which is valued at about $6,000 and made of pernambuco wood from Brazil, with 18 carat gold-mounted ebony fittings.

"Normally a bow takes some time to get used to, especially when a violinist is doing all those exceptionally fast passages," said Vann.

"Generally you don't get used to it that quickly. But Pinchas had it under complete control immediately."

The maestro, who conducts the National Arts Centre Orchestra, also told Vann it was the best bow he's ever played. "It's a wonderful compliment, but I think he was perhaps caught up in the rapture of the evening," said Vann modestly.

The fundraiser for both the Victoria Conservatory of Music and Victoria Symphony has raised close to $250,000.