Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Music Director
One of the leading violinists of our time, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg is best known for her exhilarating performances, passionate interpretations, musical depth and unique charisma. A highly acclaimed soloist and recording artist, Nadja has also gained recognition in the orchestral arena.Now in her third season as Music Director of the New Century Chamber Orchestra, Nadjarecently led the 19-member string orchestra on their first US tour together in January and early February 2011 to great success.
The New Century Chamber Orchestra’s 2011 eight-city tour featured works by Wolf, Piazzolla and Tchaikovsky, with performances at Ohio’s Cleveland Museum of Art and Denison University; the (Ann Arbor) University Musical Society series in Michigan; Northwestern University in Illinois,and the Broad Stage (Santa Monica), UC San Diego and the Mondavi Center in California. The New Century’s 2010-11 season, comprised of four additional subscription series of 4 concerts each (September November, March and May) features two spring series March 24 – 27 and May 19 – 22. Of special note is the May series, which presents the chamber orchestra’s world premiere commission by 2010-11 Featured Composer Mark O’Connor. In November 2010, Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg’s record label, NSS Music, released the highly anticipated second recording by Nadja and New Century. A live recording featuring Strauss’s Metamorphosen, Barber’s Adagio for Strings and Mahler’s Adagietto from Symphony No. 5, the CD has been praised as “brilliant” (Oregon Music News), and allmusic.com advised, “For those who like orchestral music for strings that takes nothing less than revelation as its goal, this is a must-have.”
A powerful and innovative presence on the recording scene, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg started NSS Music in 2005. This record label continues to grow, with the most recent addition to the label family being the acclaimed American String Quartet. The American’s “Schubert’s Echo” CD was released in August 2010. In 2009, NSS Music released “Together,” Nadja’s first recording collaboration with New Century. “Together” includes Impressions by Clarice Assad, which was given its world premiere by New Century in 2008; Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires; Gershwin’s Bess You is My Woman Now from Porgy and Bess, arranged for string orchestra, both with Nadja as soloist; and Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances arranged for string orchestra. “Together” follows NSS Music’s recording “Originis, Live from Brazil,” released in April 2009, a recording which honors the Italian heritage of Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg and the Brazillian heritage of her collaborators, guitarists Sérgio and Odair Assad. The NSS Music label also features Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg’s “Merry” (a compilation of Christmas favorites), “Nadja” (Tchaikovsky and Assad, violin concertos), “Live”(Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Anne-Marie McDermott), as well as “Love, All that It Is”(NSS Music’s first jazz album featuring The Clarice Assad Trio), Anne-Marie McDermott’s “Bach”, and John Cerminaro’s “John Cerminaro, A Life of Music.” Additionally, Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg has over twenty releases on the EMI and Nonesuch labels.
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg’s exceptional artistry is paired with great musical intelligence which, along with her unique personality, have served her well in numerous environments – on camera, in a commercial for Signet Bank, hosting a Backstage/Live from Lincoln Center program for PBS, appearing in the PBS/BBC series The Mind, even talking to Big Bird on Sesame Street. She was the subject of the 2000 Academy Award-nominated film, Speaking in Strings, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Released in theaters nationwide and subsequently premiered on HBO’s Signatures channel in 1999, this intensely personal documentary on her life is available on VHS and DVD through New Video. The CD of music from the film was released in 1999 by Angel/EMI. Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg appeared on ABC’s primetime comedy Dharma & Greg in 2001, and she has also been interviewed and profiled on CBS’ 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes II, and Sunday Morning; CNN’s Newsstand; NBC’s National News and
Newsstand; NBC’s National News and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson; A&E’s Artist of the Week with Elliot Forrest; Bravo’s Arts & Minds and The Art of Influence; PBS’ Live from Lincoln Center, The Charlie Rose Show, and City Arts. On the publishing front, Nadja: On My Way, her autobiography written for children discussing her experiences as a young musician building a career, was published by Crown Books in 1989.
Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg’s professional career began in 1981 when she won the Walter W. Naumburg International Violin Competition. In 1983 she was recognized with an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and in 1988 was Ovations Debut Recording Artist of the Year. In 1999 she was honored with the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, awarded to instrumentalists who have demonstrated “outstanding achievement and excellence in music.” In May of that same year, Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg was awarded an honorary Master of Musical Arts from the New Mexico State University, the first honorary degree the University has ever awarded. An American citizen, Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg was born in Rome and emigrated to the United States at the age of eight to study at The Curtis Institute of Music. She later studied with Dorothy DeLay at The Juilliard School.