by Daina Janitis
“Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.” – Jimi Hendrix
The concert I want to tell you about won’t involve rock, open rebellion, or active protest. It involves Lara St. John, a brilliant violinist, a Londoner, a personality who fills a concert hall, and a champion of honesty whose very presence is a gift to London this Saturday evening at Metropolitan United Church.
Sometimes we just NEED great music.
“Your brain responds to music like it’s a survival tool. When music plays, almost the entire brain ignites. The motor cortex drives your body to the beat. The hippocampus ties melodies to memories. The amygdala unleashes waves of feeling. And in the orbitofrontal cortex—the brain’s reward and decision hub—the same circuitry that flares in OCD lights up with music’s cycles of tension and release.” (Attributed to Harvard Medicine: The Magazine of the Harvard Medical School.)
Listen to Lara and Matt Herskowitz in this video from her Shiksa album. It’s not on Saturday night’s program- but her passion for truth and music will be.
Meanwhile, what has the London kid who picked up a violin and joined her older brother Scott in playing done with all of that talent?
As for most musicians’ bios, you’ll need an atlas and incredible patience to follow the list:
- She debuted with an orchestra at age 4 – and with Lisbon’s Gulbenkian when she was 10.
- AT 12, she toured Spain, Greece, Portugal, and Hungary
- She’s studied at Curtis, the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, the Guildhall, Mannes College, and the New England Conservatory
- She has been a soloist with the major orchestras of every continent.
- She created her own label – Ancalagon – in 1999
- She received the Order of Canada in 2021 – for “service to society and innovations that ‘ignite our imaginations’.”
It was Sting who said, “The truth is like a sword. You have to hold it with an open hand.”
And Lara St. John’s devotion to truth has been as inspiring as her music. In 2019, she told a Philadelphia newspaper that she had been abused and raped as a student at Curtis Institute of Music in 1985. That distinguished school had covered up the crime when she reported it. She is currently finishing a documentary film about the abuse of young music students. Read about the documentary here: https://theviolinchannel.com/lara-st-john-to-release-documentary-about-sexual-abuse-in-classical-music-industry/
Her hope for the documentary, Dear Lara, is not a selfish one: “They need to admit to wrongdoing and take every possible precaution to never let these things happen again. Predator Whack-A-Mole (my term for allowing depraved men to quietly resign, enabling them to simply take their behavior elsewhere) must stop. It’s unconscionable, and it’s everywhere,” Lara appealed.
Saturday’s Program:
Lara’s chosen concerto to perform with London Symphonia is Avner Dorman’s Concerto No.2, which premiered in 2018 when it won the Azrieli Prize. The composer tells an intriguing tale about the piece. The 92nd Street Y (and Gil Shaham) approached him to write a piece for their Jewish Melodies program. He admits his research surprised him in finding common modes and melodies in Jewish music from various parts of the world. One of these, he said, is the Nigun – a melody that can be sung in Yiddish and understood by an Arabic speaker: “The Nigun has no beginning and no end and is eternal.”
Lara discusses Avner Dorman’s Violin Concerto No. 2, “Nigunim,” with Andrew Chung, Artistic Producer, London Symphonia, in this Behind The Music video clip: https://youtu.be/t6FuSbI_5fw
On Saturday night, London Symphonia will also perform Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream Suite and Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring.
It’s January – the month of miserable weather, broken resolutions, and depressing realizations. This year, the news from our neighboring country shatters our trust and brings even more dismay into our lives. And January 27th is the annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. Each year, Canadians and individuals all over the world take this opportunity to remember the victims of the Holocaust and to reflect on the dangers of anti-Semitism.
Sometimes, just being in the presence of truth-tellers and creators of incredible beauty can remind us of our power to change the world. Lara St. John and London Symphonia will be at Metropolitan United on Saturday night to keep us from forgetting.
IF YOU GO:
What: London Symphonia presents Lara St. John: The Ancient Flame.
When: Saturday, January 17, at 7:30pm.
Where: Metropolitan United Church, 468 Wellington Street, London, ON.
Tickets: https://www.londonsymphonia.ca/event/lara-st-john-ancient-flame
To learn more about Lara St. John, visit https://www.larastjohn.com/
Follow Lara on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AncalagonRecords and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stjohnlara/
To learn more about London Symphonia, visit https://www.londonsymphonia.ca/
Previewed by Daina Janitis
The Beat Magazine 2025 