Lara St. John's movie theater is 40,000 feet in the air.
That's where she spends most of her time, in airplanes, her gaze fixated on the tiny screen on the seat back or watching monitors above her. Last year, she circled the world twice, clocking some 300,000 miles.
"I just watched 'I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry' on the last plane," the 36-year-old violinist confessed. "Apparently, it (her birthplace of Ontario, Canada) is very popular for same-sex marriage, according to 'Chuck and Larry.' "
Very progressive, you remark.
"I thought so," she agrees, then chuckles like she's sharing gossip during a phone interview from her home in New York last week to discuss her first-ever Tucson performance.
She wants to see Steve Carell's "Evan Almighty" and "Dan in Real Life," and also "American Gangster," but she just can't find it in her to watch the 2005 epic "Munich."
"For me, it's entertainment value," she explained. "I still haven't seen 'Munich,' for example, because I just can't bring myself to do that at the end of a day's work. I know I should, and it's an important film."
But screen Errol Flynn's "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938), and St. John won't budge until the closing credits roll.
"You can just go into wherever with the old 'Robin Hood' and Errol Flynn movies," she gushed. "It's escapism."
She and the TSO will wallow in that glorious Golden Age of Hollywood escapism during "At the Movies," a concert that features music written specifically for Hollywood movies, or hijacked by Hollywood.
TSO's music director, George Hanson, said the program draws the connection between classical music and music of the soul.
"I watched 'E.T.' the other night with my two 5-year-olds, and I was considering the impact of the music on the experience of watching the movie, trying to imagine what that movie would have meant to us if there had been no John Williams score," Hanson explained. "There's no question that people who have been producing films recognize what music means to the total experience."
St. John will play Eric Wolfgang Korngold's Violin Concerto, which borrowed from themes of the 20th-century composer's other film scores, including "Another Dawn" (1937), "Juarez" (1939) and "Anthony Adverse" (1936).
Don't forget "The Prince and the Pauper," she quickly reminds you, referring to the 1937 film starring Errol Flynn.
"I don't know if you're a big Errol Flynn fan, but (Korngold) wrote all the music for that," she said. "He (Flynn) was the golden age of swashbuckling Hollywood movies. It kind of sounds like that. You really sort of feel like you're in a Golden Age of Hollywood movie. It's great fun."
Her appearance with the TSO comes in a year in which St. John has forced herself to slow down. In addition to flying around the globe twice last year, she performed 19 different concertos. She also recorded three CDs, including the double disc "Bach: The Six Sonatas and Partitas for Violin Solo," released to iTunes in August and to the general public in early October.
"It was just bonkers. Like, I was never home. I would get home with just enough time to do laundry and I would take off again," St. John said. This year, "I will spend at least one-third of the time at home."
St. John's career has been going at this kinetic pace for so long it's second nature. She's been on the road since she made her European debut at age 10. She started playing violin at age 2 and performed her first solo with an orchestra at age 4.
At 14, she leapfrogged from middle school to Philadelphia's noted Curtis Institute of Music. She graduated three years later.
She has been praised for phenomenal musicianship and her unabashed sex appeal. She has been prominently profiled in several magazine features on sex appeal and violins, and her famous debut album cover photo â the one with her appearing naked except for her violin â pops up when you Google her name.
St. John also is known as a cunning businesswoman who, after a sour experience with Sony, launched her own record label, Ancalagon, in 2001. She has no idea if the venture will pay dividends, but you get the idea that her artistic freedom could be payment enough.
"I go pretty high on production costs because at no point do I ever want to sacrifice the quality," she said. "There's no fake reverberation. I'm totally against fake reverb. I've never done anything in a tiny studio, except for that Sony thing."
Her Tucson appearance is her first of two in coming months. She returns in March for the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music's Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival.
On the flight over, she's hoping for a good movie. If not, she'll flip on her 80-gig iPod, loaded with episodes of "CSI" and "South Park."
"When I found out that you could download every season of 'CSI,' I did that â and then crashed my computer, of course," she said, then laughed. "I finally had to get an external hard drive.
"Again, it's escapism. I spend a lot of time waiting in line. I would much rather be watching Gil Grissom than somebody ambling in front of me."
Preview
Tucson Symphony Orchestra: "At the Movies"
âĸ Featuring: Violinist Lara St. John.
âĸ Conducted by: George Hanson.
âĸ When: 8 p.m. Thursday and next Friday; 2 p.m. Nov. 18.
âĸ Where: Tucson Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave.
• Tickets: $19-$71 through the TSO, 882-8585, or online at www.tucsonsymphony.org
âĸ Program:
Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries," from "Die WalkÃŧre" ("Apocalypse Now," "Fantasia 2000").
Mascagni's Intermezzo, from "Cavalleria Rusticana" ("Godfather III").
Korngold's Violin Concerto (featuring St. John).
Barber's Adagio for Strings ("Platoon").
Herrmann's "Psycho: A String Suite" ("Psycho").
Offenbach's Intermezzo and Barcarolle, from "The Tales of Hoffman" ("Titanic").
Dukas' "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" ("Fantasia" and "Fantasia 2000").
• Online: See videos and hear sound samples at www.larastjohn.com.
