Magdalena Martinic-Jercic, associate concertmaster, was born in Burlington, Vt., and began playing the violin at age six, after a year of piano lessons. Music played an important role in her life; her father, a radiologist, played keyboard and cello, and her mother was a professional flutist and a professor of Italian.
Martinic-Jercic attended North Carolina School of the Arts and the University of Michigan where she received her bachelor's and master's degrees in music, under the tutelage of Paul Makanowitzky and Ruggiero Ricci. Her other teachers were Ivan Galamian and Shmuel Ashkenasi. After graduation, she performed with the Vera Cruz Symphony in Mexico for six months before attending the Eastman School of Music in New York. At Eastman, as a result of winning the 1981 International Cleveland Quartet Competition, she served as assistant to Donald Weilerstein.
In 1984, she married Borivoj “Boro” Martinic-Jercic and together they performed with the Mantovani Touring Orchestra and the Detroit Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. They are the parents of two daughters, Marija, 11 and Ivana, 7.
Martinic-Jercic joined The Phoenix Symphony in 1986 and also plays with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra based in New York. Practicing, playing and running a household would be enough for anyone, but she still finds time to run three miles a day and to cook pasta, a favorite food of hers and Boro's. Summers find the couple in Santa Fe, playing with the opera orchestra. A jazz fan, Martinic-Jercic loves the work of Al Jarreau and when there is time, she enjoys reading, biking and crossword puzzles.