Lara St John

Since The Inquirer published her story in 2019, St. John has received hundreds of accounts of sexual harassment from women and men

Lara St. John had her own story about sexual abuse in classical music. What she didn’t know was how widespread it is.

The violinist has spoken to multiple survivors of sexual misconduct in hopes to bring about immediate change and awareness

Lara St. John to Release Documentary About Sexual Abuse in Classical Music Industry

Five years ago, Lara St. John’s story of alleged abuse by her teacher at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music shook the world of classical music.

“Stories continue to roll in”

CBC Arts - The Canadian musician shares her experience surviving sexual assault while at music school

Violinist Lara St. John on how to make classical music safer for everyone

Elamin is joined by Globe and Mail reporter Josh O’Kane to talk about the Calgary Philharmonic’s decision to remove two of its musicians after an investigation looking into ‘deeply troubling comments posted online’. Then, he speaks with Canadian violinist Lara St.John about how to make music schools and orchestras safer for girls and women.

Commotion with Elaine Abdelmahmoud - CBC

Lauries's take on freedom and the deep meaning of New York Harbor, though so few now remember. From the album she/her/hers by Lara St. John. Videography by Samovar Film Productions and WGBH Boston, sound by Laura De Rover, styling by Milica Paranosic, and thanks to Captain Martin.

View full video HERE

The Violin Channel recently caught up with Lara St. John, Aisslinn Nosky, and Adrienne Lloyd. We were curious to know how their time away from Canada in New York City has affected their careers and lives.

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For immediate release – New York, NY – Violinist Lara St. John will release her new album ♀she/her/hers on September 29, 2022, on Ancalagon Records. The recording features 17 original solo violin compositions written by 12 leading composers, including Laurie Anderson, Valerie Coleman, Gabriela Lena Frank, Jessica Meyer, Jessie Montgomery, Milica Paranosic, Micheline Coulombe St. Marcoux, Laura de Rover, Melissa Dunphy and Adah Kaplan.

READ FULL PRESS RELEASE HERE

An original solo violin piece by Milica Paranosic featuring aerial pole dancer Lara Michaels and violinist Lara St. John. Here is Lara M's choreography and visual take on the work, filmed at Duane Park on the Lower East Side. From the album she/her/hers. Video by Samovar Film Productions.

From the new album she/her/hers - releases September 29th: An ethereal thought-provoking piece featuring some beautiful wild iguanas and skies from Puerto Rico.

Canadian violinist and composer Sophie-Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté thought of this dance on the boat back to Spain from Melilla (a Spanish city in Morocco). Stephanie Cadman brings it to a new Canadian life in this version, played by Lara St. John.

Help us help Ukraine! Ukrainian-Canadian violinist and singer Carissa Klopoushak, violinist Lara St John and pianist Matt Herskowitz joined forces in Montreal to make a tribute video ft a warrior dance from the Carpathian highlands in Ukraine, preceded by a song thought of as the Funeral Anthem since the first Russian invasion in 2014. Here is a list of vetted organizations trying to help - please consider donating! https://help-ukraine.crd.co

New Tune by Gene Pritsker, (orchestrator and composer for The Matrix) starring Gene, violinist Lara St. John, and Santa!!! Feat. many Xmas carols....some obvious, some not! Premiering LIVE with Vancouver Symphony December 17 and 18 2021.

Audio Version can be found HERE

By Jeff Kaliss | From the January-February 2021 issue of Strings magazine

When Lara St. John sought a moniker for her own record label in 1999, she chose Ancalagon, to memorialize her recently deceased pet iguana, whose name in turn had been taken from a formidable creature in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Silmarillion. Her love for reptiles harkened back to her upbringing as a violin prodigy in Ontario, Canada, where her mother rewarded her with a plastic dinosaur every time she topped a competition. “[The dinosaurs] made me practice,” she recounts by phone from her current home in New York City.

Bringing an artist-run classical label into the world in 1999 perhaps cast St. John in a role similar to that of Daenerys Targaryen, the confident and courageous princess of dragons in Game of Thrones. “No solo classical artist had done it,” St. John claims. “But I just wanted to be able to have control over whatever I put out there: what I recorded, how I put it out there visually, and that sort of stuff.”

Read the full article HERE.

The series celebrates the 150th anniversary of New York’s iconic Atterbury House, with performances by Sybarite5, Tessa Lark & Michael Thurber, the Ulysses Quartet, Xavier Foley, PUBLIQuartet, The Westerlies, Imani Winds, Aisslinn Nosky, the Brentano Quartet, Augustin Hadelich, and St. John herself.

“Champion ice-dancers Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue and violinist Lara St. John are among 114 athletes, artists, scholars and community leaders named to the Order of Canada on Friday.” - By Jacquelyn LeBel

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Check out this performance presented by Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, which features Lara St. John, the Ulysses Quartet, and Marc-André Hamelin playing Debussy’s Violin Sonata in G Minor, Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major, and Chausson’s Concerto in D for Violin, Piano and String Quartet.

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VC recently caught up with violinist Lara St John for a behind-the-scenes Instagram takeover — direct from her Coronavirus quarantine in New York City.

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Lara St. John and pianist Matt Herskowitz release their latest album, Key of A, on April 20, 2020, through Ancalagon Records. The album pairs Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 9, “Kreutzer,” in A Major with César Franck’s Sonata in A major for Violin and Piano, and also includes Fritz Kreisler’s Schön Rosmarin.

Later, in September, she was the focal point of We Believe You: Solidarity Concert for Lara at the Gallery MC on West 52nd St. As a violinist, St. John scored a musical knockout with the super-virtuosic Čoček by Milica Paranosić. The evening’s emotional peak, though, was an 11-minute digest of the 400 emails she had received from women who had been similarly abused.

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The Rest Is Noise Person of the Year is Lara St. John.

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Monday, November 4th, 2019 by Drew McManus

In the latest chapter of what comes across as a book on how not to go about crisis management, the Curtis Institute continues to dig up in response to allegations of sexual abuse and impropriety.

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11/1/2019 by CARRIE N. BAKER

Over the past two years, the #MeToo movement has reached many fields, and classical music is no exception.

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“You and the Board have failed both this venerable institution and the Curtis community.

Serious crimes were committed and we now know that dozens of other children and women were affected by this pattern of abuse, neglect and negligence by senior Curtis staff.”

Read full letter here

Abused, then Mocked: Acclaimed violinist says she was sexually assaulted by her renowned teacher at the Curtis Institute, and then disregarded when she reported it.

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Lara plays a little Vivaldi (the 'cuckoo', from Summer) for a very enthusiastic and excited parrot named Corky in LaCrosse, Wisconsin!

November 2018: Lara did the world premiere of composer Avner Dorman's Nigunim (Violin Concerto # 2) at Maison Symphonique in Montreal, with Orchestre classique de Montréal at the Azrieli Prize Gala.

It was recorded in March 2019 and will be released September 2019, as well as premiered in Poland and the Czech Republic in Fall of 2019.

St. John serves as Wolf Trap’s artistic advisor for chamber music at the Barns, and she made her debut on its stage in 2009 performing works by Bartok, Schoenberg and playing a premiere by Matthew Hindson, which inspired by nuclear testing in the Australian province of Maralinga. She feels the Barns is an amazing place to perform.

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Lara St John and Matt Herskowitz performing composer Milica Paranosic’s new violin & piano arrangement of the traditional Macedonian circle dance: 'Čoček'

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"What a way to start the new year! Lara St. John will remarkably recreate the demanding solo passages depicted on screen, in what amounts to a virtuosic two-hour concerto."

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