YMF WINNERS CHOSEN IN VIOLIN, CELLO

A 13-year-old violinist from Chicago and a 21-year-old cellist from Linz, Austria, were the top winners in the 1985 Debut Competition of the Young Musicians Foundation, Sunday night in Royce Hall at UCLA.

Jasmine Lin, a native of Ohio who now commutes weekly from her home outside Chicago to study with Josef Gingold at Indiana University, was first-prize winner in violin. Joanna Picker, who has been studying with Eleonore Schoenfeld at USC for the past four years, won in the cello division. Both young women were awarded prizes of $5,000; in addition, Lin took an additional $5,000 as winner of the Lynn and Stanley Beyer Award, a bonus prize given at the discretion of the judges.

Lin and Picker won in a finals field of four violinists and three cellists, whose names were announced only when they got to the finals; until then, all contestants were identified only by number.

Six judges made the choice of winners. They were conductor Maurice Abravanel, violinists Ruggiero Ricci and Stuart Canin and cellists Zara Nelsova, Peter Rejto and Nathaniel Rosen.

Robin Sharp, 17, of Palo Alto, California, took second place in violin, winning $2,500. Deanna Lee, 20, of New York City won third place and took home $1,500. Scott St. John, 15, a Canadian now studying at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, was awarded $1,000 as fourth-place winner.

Winning second and third places in the cello division were Melissa Brooks, 15, of New York City, and Johann Sebastian Paetsch, 21, of Colorado Springs, Colo., receiving $2,500 and $1,500, respectively.

Lin and Picker will both appear with the YMF Debut Orchestra in concerts later this year.