Lara St. John
| Lara St. John | |
|---|---|
Lara St. John in 2007
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| Background information | |
| Born |
April 15, 1971 London, Ontario, Canada |
| Genres | Classical |
| Years active | 1996–present |
| Labels | Ancalagon Records |
| Website | http://www.larastjohn.com |
Lara St. John (born April 15, 1971 in London, Ontario) is a Canadian violinist.
Lara St. John spent her early childhood in the City of London, Ontario. 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.
In 1976, at the age of five years, she began making frequent trips with her mother and brother to Cleveland, Ohio, where the young St. John worked under the instruction of Linda Cerone. In 1979, she spent a year in Paris studying with Gérard Jarry.
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.
Accepted at the age of 13, St. John entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she later received her degree. She studied under Felix Galimir and Arnold Steinhardt. Shortly thereafter, in 1988, she moved to Russia and became the youngest post-graduate student at the Moscow Conservatory. But with the Soviet Union's decline, the Conservatory faced terminal budgetary constraints, with the result that St. John’s instructors soon defected and the students then at the conservatory were dismissed.
With her studies disrupted, St. John took the opportunity to travel throughout the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. During that time she encountered the Romani people, a cultural experience that would later be reflected in her 1997 album, "Gypsy."
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).
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