IMAGINE if you had the musical talent but not the means to maximise it.

Here is where the aptly named Jumpstart Jr Foundation, from Holland, comes to the rescue by loaning period instruments to young musicians.

Three beneficiaries of this nurturing programme, violinists Bojan Cicic, Huw Daniel and Cecilia Bernardini, are being brought together by Jumpstart for a day of concerts in three church buildings at the 2014 York Early Music Festival on Saturday.

“You never forget the first time. The first time, that is, of playing an instrument infinitely superior to the one you possess and are accustomed to,” says YEMF artistic advisor Kati Debretzeni, leader of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment .

“You feel you can fly, you can suddenly do things you’ve heard others do but could never manage.

“You feel inspired, and ideas spark off the instrument as if it were talking to you. It helps you re-invent yourself in ways you never imagined.

“This surely is the experience of the fortunate young players who are recipients of a Jumpstart award in the form of an excellent instrument, which is leant to them for a number of years.”

The winners are usually at the start of their career, freshly out of college, but already have made their mark in their field.

“They are, uniquely, all players of period string instruments. The Foundation owns a number of outstanding violins and cellos that are either in their original 17th or 18th century condition, never having been modernised – such instruments are rare, but they do exist – or they have been restored to their original Baroque/classical set-up,” says Kati.

“As the market for old instruments has gone through the roof in recent decades, the chances of a young player at the beginning of their career playing a really fine example are increasingly slim, but Jumpstart’s instruments give the musicians an irreplaceable friend and companion for the first leg of their journey.”

Playing such an instrument alters the player’s horizons, suggests Kati. “Experiencing one must be like coming through the thick of the forest, admiring the trees and flowers on your way, then suddenly standing on a clearing on top of the hill, taking in the unimpeded view as far as the eye can see,” she says.

“Your technique, acquired through so many years of practice, suddenly allows you to do things you didn’t imagine possible.

“The colours you get from your instrument are those of a painter’s palette; it responds to your demands in infinitely subtle ways; it teaches you new things every day; you can finally make the sound you always dreamt of making.”

On Saturday, Bojan Cicic performs J S Bach’s violin sonatas and partitas in his Sei Solo a Violino programme at Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, at 10.30am; Huw Daniel and Harmony Of Nations play J.S. Bach’s Trio Sonatas at the Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, at 12 noon; and Cecilia Bernardini is accompanied by Keiko Schichijo on foretpiano in a 2.30pm programme of Mozart and Beethoven Sonatas from Vienna at the National Centre for Early Music, in St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate.

They all then join together at the NCEM at 5pm for Concerto a Tre, a reconstruction of J.S. Bach’s triple violin concerto in D minor, in the company of Harmony Of Nations.

For tickets, phone 01904 658338 or book online at ncem.co.uk/yemf