Lara St. John

Canadian Lara St. John began playing violin at two and started taking lessons at three. An impressive feat, but not in-your-face. Even spending a year in Paris at eight years old to study with a master and her subsequent professional debut with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon at ten followed by a three-year tour of Europe was most certainly remarkable to the point of being amazing, but not in-your-face.

Graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at seventeen and becoming the youngest post-graduate student at the Moscow Conservatory didn't make St. John an in-your-face woman either. Nor did any of her other tours, appearances, awards, accomplishments and distinctions.

What demonstrates her in-your-facedness is the covers on her albums, at least one of which sold 25,000 copies (a lot for Bach). Shocking the classical music community out of their sensible shoes, St. John's only response was, "I'm not a fat old man. Why should I dress like one?" Yup. In-your-face, all right. Violin and all.