London Symphonia will launch its 2026 winter/spring concert season with a performance by acclaimed violinist Lara St. John. Lara was born and raised in London, and the concert represents both her London Symphonia debut and her first performance in the city in more than a decade.
Lara St. John: The Ancient Flame takes place on January 17, and features the music of three composers with Jewish roots — Aaron Copland, Avner Dorman, and Felix Mendelssohn.
“2026 is off to a great start for London Symphonia with the long-awaited debut by the phenomenal violinist Lara St. John,” said Andrew Chung, Artistic Producer, London Symphonia in a statement.
“We have been looking forward to collaborating with Lara for a number of years, and this program with Avner Dorman’s riveting Violin Concerto No. 2 “Nigunim” is a perfect opportunity for Londoners to witness her breathtaking artistry.”
Conductor Nicolas Ellis will also make his London Symphonia debut at the concert.
“Through his experiences in leading the innovative Orchestre de l’Agora, Les Violons du Roy, and learning alongside Yannick Nézet-Séguin as Artistic Collaborator to the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, he brings a rich range of musical ideas and perspectives to Dorman’s Violin Concerto and the other works on the program: music from Mendelssohn’s fun and capricious A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring Suite, a peaceful, hopeful and optimistic piece,” Chung said.
Lara St. John has a close connection to Dorman’s Violin Concerto No. 2, a work that draws from global Jewish traditions, and was awarded the Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music in 2018. It was originally written as a violin sonata, and St. John was involved in the development of the piece. She has recorded the Concerto, and performed it in a quintet adaptation with the Gryphon Trio.
“I am delighted to be back home to make my London Symphonia debut,” said Lara St. John. “I am looking forward to performing Avner Dorman‘s Concerto for you, for which I gave the North American and European premieres. We all appreciate your support of music in London.”
Lara St. John
Lara St. John started playing violin at the age of two. Born into a family of teachers, she and her brother Scott were encouraged to pursue their musical talents as children.
She began taking lessons with a private teacher and gave her first public performance at the age of four. By the time she was five, she, along with her brother and mother, were making trips to Cleveland, OH on a regular basis to further their music studies. At age eight, she spent a year in Paris to study with Gérard Jarry, and the following year, won the grand prize at the Canadian Music Competition. Lara made her European debut with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Portugal at age ten, and spent the next three years touring Spain, France, and Hungary, among other stops in the continent.
She was accepted into the Curtis Music Institute in Philadelphia at age 13, where she would earn her degree, and at 16, became the youngest post-graduate student at the Moscow Conservatory.
Lara later continued her studies with the Guildhall School in London, Mannes College of Music in New York, and the New England Conservatory, and has since performed with major orchestras, and in prominent venues, throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia.
In 1999, she founded Ancalagon LLC, an artist-owned record company, and has released 16 albums on that label since then. She was invested with the Order of Canada in 2021.
Lara owns and performs on three violins: a 1779 Guadagnini, a 2011 David Wiebe and a 2024 Isabelle Wilbaux.
In recent years, Lara came forward with a public accusation of sexual assault against one of her instructors at Curtis, which occurred when she was just 14. In the current bio on her website, she comments on her experiences in the classical music world.
“I began playing the violin when I was two years old and have continued to do so ever since. But even though my career has had many high points and offered real artistic satisfaction, I cannot honestly say I would do it all over again. It has required horrific sacrifices — including my experiences with child sexual abuse and being treated as little more than a commodity by a long list of presenters, administrators and so-called educators.
“Rampant misogyny continues to be depressingly commonplace in the world of classical music, incredibly, even as we fumble our way toward the middle of the 21st century. This has drained away a lot of the sheer joy of making music for me.
“At the same time, I have made some wonderful friends in this business. I will always have faith in them and in the profound power of music to inspire and to heal. I will never stop being amazed by the possibility within a simple instrument like the violin. But my desire to use it as a tool for making a living has fallen off to almost nothing.”
Her documentary Dear Lara will premiere in 2026.
The Concert
Concertgoers can choose to attend Lara St. John: The Ancient Flame in person at Metropolitan United Church in London, or virtually through London Symphonia’s new Watch and Listen video on demand channel, which features high quality 4K HDR videos of 2025-26 concerts along with events from past seasons.
- The concert takes place January 17, 2026 at Metropolitan United Church; find tickets and in-person concert details [HERE].
- Subscribe to their digital platform to view the concert online [HERE].
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