Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg violin

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. After serving for two highly successful seasons as Music Director of the NEW CENTURY Chamber Orchestra (NEW CENTURY), Nadja leads this 19-member string orchestra into their third season, which includes a January/February 2011 U.S. tour. Performing works by Wolf, Bartók, Piazzolla and Tchaikovsky, Nadja and NEW CENTURY travel to San Francisco, CA; Cleveland, OH; Granville, OH; Ann Arbor, MI; Evanston, IL; Santa Monica, CA; San Diego, CA; and Davis, CA. NEW CENTURY's 2010-11 season also includes four subscription series, two of which highlight the 2010-11 Featured Composer Mark O'Connor, whose world premiere commission will be performed in May 2011. In Fall 2011, Nadja's record label, NSS Music, releases a highly anticipated second recording of Nadja and NEW CENTURY featuring Strauss's Metamorphosen, Barber's Adagio for Strings and Mahler's Adagietto from Symphony No. 5.

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 release being "Schubert's Echo" featuring the American String Quartet 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 Dances arranged for string orchestra. "Together" follows NSS Music's recording "Originis Live from Brasil," released in April 2009, a recording which honors the Italian heritage of Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg and the Brazilian 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, performed by Nadja and friends), "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, Salerno-Sonnenberg has over twenty releases on the EMI and Nonesuch labels.

Ms. 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 prime time 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 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.

Nadja 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 Masters 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.

JULY 2010

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Visit Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg at http://www.nadjasalernosonnenberg.com

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