Palm Beach Illustrated, November 1999 First Fiddle At the Flagler Museum and on stages around the world, coming-of-age violinist Lara St. John brings a new vitality to the world of classical music. by Nancy Jaslow Bader photography by Steven Caras Lara St. John travels light. For a seven-week European concert tour, the violin virtuoso crams everything she needs into one suitcase and a carry-on. The suitcase is packed with abandon, a hodgepodge of clothes, makeup, CDs and sheet music jammed in wherever there‘s room. Her carry-on is something else entirely. St. John treats that case as though it holds a Stradivarius. In fact, it does — a 1702 Lyall Stradivarius on loan from an anonymous donor. The 28-year-old Canadian native has carried this prize for two years, ever since she won a compe tition sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts. St. John is a study in contrasts. Off-stage, her style is Bohemian, embellished by long, flowing tresses and a nearly 6-ft. frame. When she‘s per forming, her hair is pulled back, instantly creat ing an aura of sophistication. She admits, it‘s not for image so much as to keep the hair away from her violin bow. Likewise with her jewelry. Off stage, she‘s into rings and things, but come showtime, she limits herself to a single stud earring. Dangling baubles or bangles might fiddle with the musician‘s fiddle. If her fiery eyes and on-stage passion and vigor seem Gypsy-like, it‘s not surprising. After three years at Philadelphia‘s prestigious Curtis Institute of Music, which shaped the young woman as a musician but also sheltered her from much of the outside world, St. John went off to Moscow to study at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. While she was settling in, however, her Russian teacher was defecting. St. John stayed for a year, anyway, and sowed her wild oats, in part with a caravan of Eastern European Gypsies. The adventure kindled a love of Gypsy music in her, just as it had inspired many of the classi cal composers. It also left her with some had habits, including smoking. Her other indulgence is an addiction to mayonnaise, especially on French fries. Luckily, her willowy frame and a love of salads let her get away with it. Critics describe her professional style in such terms as "superb," "exquisite" and "sizzling." They characterize her personal style as "sexy," "sultry" and "spirited." Her intensity has been likened to that of Jimi Hendrix, but she has no taste for the hard rock or heavy-metal music that appeals to much of her generation. She has a penchant for some of the old stuff, such as The Doors and Pink Floyd, and some of the really old stuff - Bach is her favorite classical composer - and she loves jazz. She went through a weeks-long phase haunting the Village Vanguard, a historic Manhattan jazz hangout. Performing between 70 and 100 concerts annually, she travels extensively by air, but rarely dons a set of headphones, unlike some young passengers who overdose on music. "I sleep," she says, adding that she swears off coffee and cigarettes days before a concert because the caffeine makes her nervous. However, she can party for hours after a performance and still be on time for a predawn photo shoot the next day. "I've learned to do my make-up in cabs," she explains. Even when her makeup is done by a professional, there's one flaw she doesnt' cover up: the trademark scar across her upper right forehead, a gruesome reminder of the day she crashed her bike into a wall and needed 127 stitches to close the resulting wound. She was 8 years old, living in France (where her family had moved temporarily) and it was her first day of school there. "I was the only foreigner in the the class, and I was the only one with a shaved head." Travel is no luxury for St. John. She flies coach, without an entourage. "My life looks more glamorous than it is," she says. Her earnings are limited by the exchange rate in Canada, where she does between 30 and 40 percent of her performances, and were reduced even further by taxes, until recently, when she got her green card. "If people knew what I really make, they'd feel sorry for me," she says. Then again, St. John adds, she's not in it for the money. She's in it for the love of what she does. St. John looks demure, but has been called defiant and demanding by fellow musicians. "I can be difficult when it has to do with music," she admits. "If people are not rehearsing correctly, I'll get angry. Especially with chamber music. The music is within me, and I tend to be a perfectionist." She reserves her harshest judgment for herself. "I'm my own worst critic," she says. "I always have the feeling that I could have reheased for 10 more minutes." Perfectionism is what caught the eye, or rather the ear, of the staff of the Flagler Museum, where St. John performs on Nov. 3. Years ago, museum founder Jean Flagler Mathews sponsored a young musicians series and, says Flagler director, John Blades, the museum is resuming that tradition, "trying to create a high-quality musical experience in an intimate, historical setting. We're gearing ourselves toward chamber music, because that is what the museum's environment lends itself to." A concert by the Eorica Trio at the Flagler Museum last March drew such tremendous response that Blades felt an invitation to St. John was warranted. Northern Trust Bank has stepped forward to be the presenting sponsor of the new Flagler Museum Music Series of chamber music concert. Conceding that she's "just one violinist," St. John nonetheless has taken on the mission of promoting classical music, as well as herself. Her efforts are directed toward young people in particular. "I feel very passionate about classical music," she says, "but it has created a lot of barriers for itself that I am trying to break down by being more personal." That's putting it mildly. The cover of her debut CD, Bach Works for violin Solo, has a black-and-white, head-to-navel photo of an adolescent-looking, nude St. John, strategically covered by a violin. By doing something unusual, I attract kids' attention," she says. "Then, when they see that I'm their age, and I play something that's familiar to them, they can maybe start to identify with the music. Everyone loves Beethoven's Fifth, because they know it. But there are kids who grow up never listening to Mozart. I try to teach them that they don't have to study the stuff to like it. Just listen to it. This is a case where familiarity does not breed contempt." Whether or not that's worked, sales of the CD have topped 30,000 copies, about double the tally for a Bach-inspired CD featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma. St. John has been playing the violin since she was 2. It started out as a sibling rivalry. When her mother came home with a violin for her 3 1/2-year-old brother, Scott, she wanted one, too. The siblings were highly competitive as children, but have since developed distinctly different styles and repertoires, not to mention careers. Scott was recently named a professor of music at the University of Toronto. He's also one of his sister's biggest fans. St. John theorizes that "because I started so young, younger than anyone I know, I can take time off, come back and nothing will have changed." For that reason, she has no qualms about not picking up her violin for as long as a month when there's no concert pending. These days, she lives in an apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side, although it doesn't really qualify as home because she's there only 4 1/2 months a year, and tours the rest of the time. Her friends understand; most of them are also musicians. So was her ex-husband, a relationship she summarizes simply by saying, "We all make mistakes. That was one of mine." St. John's peripatetic lifestyle limits her free time. Her long absences make it impossible for her to keep a pet. She did send her last one off with a royal flourish, though. Ace, an iguana, died the day she was scheduled to perform in Vancouver, and she announced to the audience that she was dedicating the conert to him. Her interest are typical of someone her age: movies, TV, the Museum of Natural History, particularly the reptile section. She has her own Web site, but doesn't get much time to reply to hits on it, since she doesn't travel with a laptop. On the road, she reads, especially anything by J.R.R. Tolkien. She's read his Lord of the Rings trilogy 15 times, "and I don't know why I even bother to turn the pages." "My profession is unusual," she says, "but actually I'm a pretty normal person." Normal, at least, for someone who didn't attend traditional high school, who graduated from college at 17, and "never went to a prom or got stuck in the back seat of a Vokswagen with some guy." But, she says, "it was worth missing for what I got out of it." St. John at times seems awed by her own success. "I've things I'd never expected," she says. But then she puts it into perspective , noting other milestones she hasn't yet achieved. There are orchestras with which she hasn't performed, but wants to. More compelling, she has yet to debut in London, though she made her European debut at age 12. A London inaugural is complicated by a requirement that one be officially presented. "It shoudn't happen at the wrong time." St. John says, anticipating that the right time will probably be in a couple of years. She also wants to fly the Concorde. And hang-glide. For now, she's trying to jam in as much as she can. The schedule can be grueling. In a recent week, she traveled between New York, Palm Beach, Ottawa and Tel Aviv. But she's also postponed back-to-back appeearances when she felt she wouldn't be able to give audiences her all. "You're on stage for an hour," she says. "No one in the audience cares if you have a headache or your haven't slept or you only had two days to learn a piece. So I try to see it from their point of view, and look at it for the excitement, not the stress."