Showtime

Who: Lara St. John

With: Boris Brott and the NAO

Where: Dofasco Centre for the Arts, 190 King William St.

When: Wednesday, July 16 at 7:30 p.m.

Cost: $25; senior $20; student $10

Call: 905-525-7664

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Sony.

Sony who?

So neat if you would do a crossover album for us, Lara. And you'll make lots of money, too.

And so, when Sony came knocking, classical violinist Lara St. John opened the proverbial door, and signed a record deal. The resulting CD was re: Bach, a crossover album that attempted to meld Bach with world music, pop and jazz. The result? A misadventure, and artistic flop.

"It seemed kind of interesting at the time," said St. John over the phone from her New York apartment last week. "When is the next time I'm going to play with tabla? Meet all these Afghanistani nai flute players? And, of course, I'd never done multitrack before, so I learned a lot about the recording process."

So, would she do it again?

"Well, hindsight makes everyone smart," laughed St. John. "And it wouldn't have been stupid to say no (to Sony)... I didn't like what they made me do. I'm a very 'core' person. What do I mean by core? Pure, absolute classical. I've never particularly been into crossover. They wanted another one of those things, and I said no ... But whatever. Live and learn."

And she has. The hard way.

So, St. John has gone back to what she began in 2001-- recording on her own label, Ancalagon.

"It was the name of my iguana," explained St. John of the name originally given to the great dragon found in Tolkien's mythical The Silmarillion.

Her first Ancalagon disc was Bach the Concerto Album. She followed that up with Bach: The Six Sonatas and Partitas for Violin Solo, which appeared last October. By December, it was iTunes's top selling double album for 2007.

St. John went whole hog for her third Ancalagon CD, hiring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Sarah Ioannides, and Air Studios' Lyndhurst Hall in London, England for three days last June. Incidentally, Lyndhurst has been used by such notables as Murray Perahia, Shlomo Mintz, U2 (All You Can't Leave Behind), and Joni Mitchell (Travelogue).

But this time round, St. John eschewed core repertoire, choosing instead Matthew Hindson's Violin Concerto, John Corigliano's Suite from the Red Violin, plus an arrangement for violin and orchestra she'd done with Martin Kennedy of Liszt's Totentanz.

And what was the price tag for this 5.1 surround sound recording adventure, which also included flying over Hindson from Australia, and her producer, Martha de Francisco from McGill University?

St. John would only say "a lot," and that it was funded by a sponsor. The same anonymous sponsor who's donated the 1779 'Salabue' Guadagnini violin that she plays? "No, just a sponsor," answered St. John.

And since St. John pointed out she doubts any classical artist, save maybe Yo-Yo Ma, makes money from recordings, just how does she intend to recoup her sponsor's investment?

"I don't know," she said. "If it recoups, great. If it doesn't, it's not the end of the world. I wanted to put something brand new out there. It's very niche. It's been on iTunes since April 15."

Next Wednesday, St. John will have her Guadagnini in hand on her return to the Brott Festival. For her latest Steel City adventure, she'll be performing core repertoire Chausson's Poeme, Ravel's Tzigane, and Kreisler's sweetmeat, Schon Rosmarin, a piece Kreisler once ventured to pass off as that by the early Viennese waltzmeister, Josef Lanner.

Leonard Turnevicius writes on classical music for The Spectator.

leonardturnevicius@hotmail.com