I discovered a violinist worth checking out, Lara St. John's. There are music clips on her web page that show an amazing sensibility. Like many other young, female virtuosos, St. John's struggles to define herself as a woman and a performer within the constraints of traditional interpretations of womanhood.
"Symphony on the wild side"
Times Colonist, Oct. 19th, 2006
Lara St. John's life sounds more like that of a jet-setting rock star than a serious classical musician. She dropped out of school at 13, toured the world playing concerts, went on a spiritual journey with gypsies in Russia at 16, scandalized her genre by posing "topless" on an album cover at 24 and when reached by cellphone, she's scaling cliffs in the Las Vegas desert for a photo shoot. "I'm pretty much always on the go. That's my life," says St. John, 34, one of the most sought-after concert violinists, who will perform with the Vancouver Island Symphony in Nanaimo this weekend.
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3 comments:
Beautiful! I saw that one of your other favourite lady violin players is Hillary Hahn. I attended one of her concerts. Amazing, especially if you love Bach! (Then she stepped down and talked to the audience. A wonderful evening.)
How about you review something that you dislike, we only hear the good reviews. Perhaps the Princess would care to listen to some uninspired elevator renditions of Beethoven?
The San Francisco Ballet had a horrid, scratchy telephone wait message of a snippet taken from the Fire Bird once. I was forced to listen to for several minutes. It was a lamentable musical experience.
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