Лара Сент-Джон: Жизнь и творчество канадской скрипачки.

Canadian violinist (born 1971)

Lara St. John (born April 15, 1971) is a Canadian violinist.

Lara St. John was born in London, Ontario, and spent her early childhood there. As the daughter of two educators (her father was a language teacher and her mother a music instructor), she and her older brother Scott were encouraged at an early age to develop musical talents. St. John began playing the violin at the age of two and the following year she began her first lessons with the instructor Richard Lawrence. She gave her first public performance as soloist with an orchestra by age four. At age 10, St. John made her European debut with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, after which she spent three years touring the continent, including Spain, France, and Hungary. St. John has stated that, during her studies at the Curtis Institute of Music, she was sexually assaulted by one of her instructors, Jascha Brodsky, when she was 14 years old. An investigation by the law firm Cozen O'Connor, commissioned by the Curtis Board, found St. John's claims to be credible. The Board unanimously accepted the law firm's report. In 1985, St. John participated in the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists, winning 4th price in the Junior division. In 1988, when she was sixteen, she moved on her own to the former Soviet Union, becoming the youngest post graduate student at the Moscow Conservatory. In that same year, St. John traveled throughout the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, where she encountered the Romani people, a cultural experience that would later influence her musical performance projects. St. John eventually returned to her studies and attended three different academies: the Guildhall School in London (under David Takeno), Mannes College of Music in New York (under Felix Galimir), and the New England Conservatory (NEC) in Boston (under James Buswell).

In North America, St. John has performed as a soloist with major symphony orchestras that include those of Cleveland, Philadelphia, Minnesota, Seattle, San Francisco, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, the Boston Pops, the Knights, the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa) and the National Symphony Orchestra (Mexico).

From 2002 to 2007, St. John performed with the Canadian music ensemble Bowfire.

In 1997, upon winning the Canada Council Stradivarius Prize, St. John was given the two year use of a Lyall Stradivarius built in 1702. In 1999, an anonymous donor made a permanent loan to St. John of the 1779 "Salabue" Guadagnini.

In 1999, St. John founded the artist owned record company, Ancalagon LLC. She formed the company as a result of her personal dissatisfaction with the marketing and production approach of larger recording companies. St. John named the record company after her pet iguana, Ancalagon.

She is married to her manager Stephen H. Judson. While not on tour, she is based in New York City. She feels an affinity with reptiles: she has a five foot long pet iguana, Ancalagon, named after a dragon from J. R. R. Tolkien's Silmarillion. Her native languages are English and French; she is also fluent in Spanish and Russian.