Time & Perspective Quote by Lara St. John

There is a quiet flex hidden inside the humility here: Lara St. John frames herself as “lucky and grateful,” but the real subject is authority. A great instrument isn’t just a tool; it’s a credential with a backstory. By calling the violin a “living link,” she shifts it from object to elder, something with a pulse and a memory. That move taps into classical music’s most seductive mythology: tradition you can literally hold under your chin.

The key word is “presumably,” a small, disarming shrug that keeps the line from sounding like an auction catalog. She knows the romance can curdle into fetish, so she undercuts it with uncertainty and modesty. Still, the implication lands: the violin carries histories she can’t fully verify or possess, and that gap becomes the point. She’s not claiming ownership of the past; she’s positioning herself as its current caretaker.

“Much more history to it than the later portion that I know” reads like an artist resisting the ego-trap of imagining herself as the main character. In a culture that rewards personal branding, she’s arguing for something less marketable and more enduring: artistry as stewardship. The subtext is also practical. Old instruments do shape sound, but they also shape narrative, and narrative shapes how audiences listen. She’s inviting you to hear not just her performance, but the accumulated labor, repairs, players, and rooms embedded in the wood.