Violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg will join Loyola University to lead the School of Music’s new Resident Artist Program. Salerno-Sonnenberg will lead the university’s Chamber Orchestra in a conductor-less ensemble performances in October and November 2015, and in January and March 2016.
Early orchestras did not utilize a conductor, but instead the concertmaster or the harpsichordist led the orchestra. As the orchestra grew in size composers conducted their own music, but by the 19th century conductors were considered an integral part of the orchestra.
The thinking is that a conductor-less ensemble empowers musicians and provides them with more autonomy.
The most famous and highly regarded conductor-less ensemble is the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, founded in 1972 by cellist Julian Fifer. Others orchestras include the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, A Far Cry, Ars Nova Chamber Orchestra and the New Century Chamber Orchestra which is also directed by Salerno-Sonnenberg.
Although born in Rome, Salerno-Sonnenberg emigrated to the US at eight-years-old to study at the Curtis Institute of Music. She also studied at the Juilliard School. She became the youngest-ever prize winner of the Walter W. Naumburg International Violin Competition. Two years later, she was recognized with an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and in 1988, was Ovations Debut Recording Artist of the Year. In 1999, Salerno-Sonnenberg was honored with the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, awarded to instrumentalists who have demonstrated “outstanding achievement and excellence in music.”
In 1994 Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg accidently sliced the tip off the little finger on her left hand while cutting an onion for a Christmas dinner. Her fingertip was surgically re-attached and took six months to heal. Salerno-Sonnenberg’s career seemed to be ruined, and in despair over what the injury could do to her career as a violinist, she attempted suicide but luckily the gun jammed. She recovered and amazingly Salerno-Sonnenberg brilliantly reconfigured the pieces for three fingers and continued to perform them.
Salerno-Sonnenberg plays a violin made in 1721 by Pietro Giovanni Guarneri in Cremona, Italy. The rare violin also has a name: Miss Beatrice Luytens, ex Cte de Sasserno.
Her first concert is scheduled at 3 p.m. on Sunday, October 4 at Nunemaker Auditorium, Monroe Hall, 3rd Floor. Other concerts at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 7, 2015, and at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, January 30, 2016 and at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 13, 2016 in Loyola’s Louis J. Roussel Performance Hall, 6363 St. Charles Ave., Communications/Music Complex, 2nd Floor. Tickets may be purchased online at montage.loyno.edu or by calling the box office at (504) 865-2074.
