Uniquely gifted and creative violin virtuoso Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg continues to bring joy to audiences whether from the stage, the TV screen, or the cyber world of the internet. Innovative, sharp and witty, she is truly an artist whose impact on the world of classical music is as deep as her love for the art.
In the 2007-08 season, Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg tours the West Coast with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra as well as with the New Century Chamber Orchestra, and performs with the New Jersey, Houston, Oregon, York, Baltimore and Colorado Symphony Orchestras. Highlights this season also include recitals with pianist Anne-Marie McDermott and a Louisiana Residency.
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg continues to enrich the collection of her record label NSS Music, which she started in 2005. Coming this year will be NSS Music's first jazz album, entitled "Love, All That It Is," featuring The Clarice Assad Trio.
Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg's professional career began in 1981 when she won the Walter W. Naumburg International Violin Competition. She was also the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1983, and in 1988 was Ovations Debut Recording Artist of the Year. In 1999, she was honored with the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, and in May of that same year, she was awarded an honorary Masters of Musical Arts from the New Mexico State University. An American citizen, Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg was born in Rome and emigrated to the United States at the age of eight ... read full bio
"The most gifted and serious violinist of her generation," Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg is renowned for the electrifying performances, originality, musical depth and sensitive colorings of her interpretations. A favorite of today's greatest conductors and orchestras, and in demand by fellow artists for collaborations in performance and recordings, she is an artist whose "playing is charged with a dynamism and ferocity quite unexcelled in the concert hall today."
During the 2006-07 season, Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg's North American orchestral engagements include performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, Vancouver (BC) Symphony, Toledo Symphony Orchestra, as well as many others from coast to coast. An active recitalist, she also resumes her successful collaborations, touring with the duo guitarists the Assads and with pianist Anne-Marie McDermott.
Already an innovative force in the recording field, Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg broke new ground in 2005 by creating her own record label, NSS MUSIC (nssmusic.com), on which her newest release for Fall 2006 is "MERRY", a unique and original album of Christmas favorites. The NSS MUSIC label's first two recordings include "LIVE", with Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott performing Schubert's Rondo brillant, Poulenc's Sonata for Violin & Piano and Beethoven's Sonata No. 7 in c, Op. 30/2 recorded in concert at New York's Merkin Hall; and a disc featuring Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg's live performance of Tchaikovsky's Concerto for Violin in D, Op. 35 and Clarice Assad's Violin Concerto at Denver's Boettcher Concert Hall with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and conductor Marin Alsop. Her goal for NSS MUSIC is to develop an eclectic catalog that reflects her admiration for a wide variety of artists and musical genres.
Prior to launching NSS MUSIC, Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg had made more than 20 recordings for the Nonesuch and Angel/EMI Classics labels. In addition to standard classical repertoire, she has made "crossover" recordings that included gypsy music from Eastern Europe with the duo guitarists the Assads (Nonesuch 2000); music from the 1947 film Humoresque combining classical works and pop standards (Nonesuch 1998), which the New York Times called "a valuable historical document"; and "It Ain't Necessarily So" (Angel/EMI 1995) featuring works by Gershwin, Kreisler, and Scott Joplin, among others. In addition to these, she appears on recordings by Mandy Patinkin, Joe Jackson and Keith Jarrett, and she has collaborated with such artists as Judy Blazer, Roger Kellaway, Bob James, Regina Carter, Eileen Ivers and Janis Siegel. Additional recent releases include Mark O'Connor's Double Violin Concerto with the violinist/composer on the OMAC label, and Concerto Originis by Sergio Assad on the GHA label.
Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg's phenomenal artistry is balanced by a naturalness and wry sense of humor that have served her well on camera, whether in a commercial for Signet Bank, hosting a Backstage/Live from Lincoln Center program for PBS, appearing in the PBS/BBC series The
Mind, or 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 also has appeared on ABC's prime time comedy Dharma & Greg in 2001, and she has 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.
