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LIVE: BARBER STRAUSS MAHLER
This highly anticipated second album by NEW CENTURY and Nadja, who is now in her third season as music director of the 19 year-old chamber orchestra, is a passionate exploration of the intense,
soulful and deeply emotional side of classical music. The CD features Barber's modern masterpiece, Adagio for Strings; Mahler's musical love letter to his future wife Alma, his Adagietto
(for orchestra), the fourth movement to his Symphony No. 5, and Strauss's virtuosic pinnacle of string orchestral writing, Metamorphosen for 23 solo instruments. The CD was recorded live during concerts.
The San Francisco Chronicle, in reviewing a performance of Strauss' Metamorphosen by the ensemble, praised, "For a hint as to why the New Century Chamber Orchestra continues to garner both praise
and loyalty from the Bay Area's canniest music lovers, you need look no further than Thursday's magisterial performance of Richard Strauss' late masterpiece "Metamorphosen." ...
under the leadership of Music Director Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, the orchestra rose to the challenge with unerring power. ... In a work that calls for each player to muster the
virtuosity and eloquence of a soloist, every member of the orchestra shone."
To learn more about this album and hear and see clips please click here www.nssmusic.com
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ORIGINIS
A vibrant, sophisticated, contemporary classical CD of pulsating, rhythmic works recorded live in Brazil by renowned musicians violinist
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and duo guitarists Sergio and Odair Assad, "Originis" will have listeners falling in love with Latin America.
Named after the CD's orchestral work ("Concerto Originis") written for the trio by Sergio Assad, this passionate recording is the seventh from the NSS MUSIC label.
It features the musicians performing with the Orquestra Sinfonica do Estado de São Paulo in "Originis", and as a trio in works by Ginastera
(Tres Danzas Argentinas), Piazzola (Milonga Per Tre) and Clarice Assad, Sergio's daughter and award winning composer/pianist in her own right (Three Sketches).
The CD comes complete with a special bonus track. "Originis," with works by four composers performed by three musicians, featuring two different musical scopes -
intimate and grand, equals one unique CD not to be missed.
To learn more about this album and hear and see clips please click here www.nssmusic.com
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TOGETHER
A landmark recording celebrating the musical union of one of today's foremost violinists and San Francisco's celebrated conductor-less string chamber orchestra. Featuring the world premiere recording of the New Century commission, Impressions, by composer Clarice Assad, Piazzolla's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances and Gershwin's Bess, You is My Woman Now.
To learn more about this album and hear and see clips please click here www.nssmusic.com
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MERRY: A HOLIDAY JOURNEY
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg & Friends
This bold, innovative recording of holiday favorites presents an inspired interpretation of the Christmas spirit as never before heard. Journey with Nadja as she and fellow musicians take a festive tour through the musical genre,s including bossa nova, jazz, opera, classical, bluegrass and the glorious sound of a full choir!
To learn more about this album, see video clips, personal messages, pictures and general information go to www.nssmusic.com or purchase now at CD Baby.
Tracks:
- Santa Clause is Coming to Town
- Silent Night
- White Christmas
- The Wassail Song / O Christmas Tree
- O Little Town of Bethlehem
- Twelve Days of Christmas
- O Holy Night
- A Christmas Medley
- Joy To the World
- We Wish You A Merry Christmas
- Hark the Herald Angels Sing
- Christmas is Coming
- Deck the Halls
- Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
- Adeste Fideles (O Come All Ye Faithful)
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LIVE
Classical music's dynamic duo in their first recording together
LIVE at Lincoln Center's Merkin Concert Hall. Violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg
and her long time collaborator pianist Anne-Marie McDermott offer what must be the
"livest" of classical recordings. The listener feels as though they are present at the
concert. We hear the most natural live acoustical sound as well as applause, artist
talking, even out takes. The duo perform the fiendish Rondo Brillante by Schubert and
the hypnotic Poulenc Sonata as well as the magnificent and grand C minor Sonata of Beethoven.
The encores include the lilting and charming waltz Midnight Bells by Kreisler and the impressive
Presto movement of the E major Sonata by Bach. Salerno-Sonnenberg and McDermott are the most exciting
and vibrant duo in classical music today and this recording more than rewards the listener. One only
hopes it is the first of many future recording collaborations.
Released on the NSS Music label.
To learn more about this album and hear and see clips please click here www.nssmusic.com
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Concertos in D Major
Violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg finally records the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with Clarice Assad's Violin Concerto written for the soloist. This performance was recorded LIVE in November, 2004 with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop conducting. The immense talent of all three women is evident here as Salerno-Sonnenberg combines the energy and tour de force of the Tchaikovsky with the perfectly suited, heartfelt and personal interpretation of the Assad. Marin Alsop is what must be a soloists dream and the collaboration is rare and rewarding. Salerno-Sonnenberg has said of this album " I am thrilled to present this recording because standard repertoire meets never before heard repertoire. Old meets new...and so it goes...as music should."
Released on the NSS Music label.
To learn more about this album and hear and see clips please click here www.nssmusic.com
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Double Violin Concerto
The concerto was written for Mark and Nadja in 1997 and the
two violinists have been performing it ever since. Recorded in 2003 with Marin Alsop and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra,
this album also contains the beautiful duo encore Appalachia Waltz and Mark playing his own Johnny Appleseed Suite
and the haunting Amazing Grace. A truly original fun fest and showcase for both styles and both players.
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Speaking in Strings
Academy Award Nominee -- Best Documentary
An extraordinarily intimate, deeply affecting and revelatory documentary on
how pain and passion can come together in a creative artist.
Salerno-Sonnenberg, unable to be anything but herself, is the
opposite of today's run of stage-managed personalities. Your heart
can't help but go out to her because, in this exceptional film, hers
goes out to you.
The Los Angeles Times
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Purchase this VHS/DVD at: |
- Amazon: VHS DVD
- Barnes and Noble: VHS DVD
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| Speaking in Strings
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Humoresque
With "Humoresque" the violinist achieves what is, for most classical
instrumentalists, a near-impossibility: a crossover disk that is
uncontrived in concept, unmannered in execution and stylish from
first note to last. Far from schlock, this album is both a personal
triumph and a valuable historical document. Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg
is right at home. She masters a sweetly sentimental, deliriously
excessive Romantic lyricism, full of emotive slides and intrusive
tempos changes that has long since disappeared from the concert
stage. She retains her brutal cutting force, which prevents Waxman's
"Carmen Fantasy" from turning into something beyond kitsch. Most
remarkably, she shows unexpected skill as an interpreter of pop
standards.
The New York Times
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Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg/Sergio & Odair Assad
The mood throughout is contemporary -- Gypsy tradition is approached
without sentimental nostalgia. Indeed the guitar writing is often
very lucid, with darker colors added by Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg. She
has never shrunk from attacking a phrase as if it were an opponent to
be subdued, and true to her musical way with Shostakovich and other
composers, her playing here is often fiery to the point of violence.
Like violinist Gidon Kremer, with whom the Assad brothers have
collaborated on other disks, Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg aims at visceral
expression rather than a truly beautiful tone.
The Wall Street Journal
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Barber/Shostakovitch
She keeps both the Barber and the Shostakovich taut and driven, and
in the Barber she avoids the easy pitfall of sloppy sentiment. If
the former bad girl of the fiddle is tempering her eccentricities,
she is doing so without sacrificing the virtues her playing has
possessed all along.
New York Times
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Brahms: Concerto in D / Bruch: Concerto No.1 in G Minor
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg loves living on the edge interpretively.
Her big risk with the Brahms concerto is drawing it out slowly, in
achingly lovely detail. It often sounds on the verge of stalling,
but the soloist pulls it off with her strength of will and her
concentration on the expressive line. The phrasing and musical
argument are distinctively Nadja throughout.
The Cincinnati Enquirer
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It Ain't Necessarily So
The divine Nadja is back, with her violin and her sense of humor, in
a set of dazzling encores that range far afield from the Gershwin
title song to repertoire you don't usually on the violin. And of
course there is Kreisler and Schubert and Joplin and... well, you
have to hear it. These are the little pieces that rocket audiences
to their feet after concerts, and you get them all on a single disc.
Yum.
The Seattle Times
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Sibelius Violin Concerto
This disc is an encapsulation of all that is rewarding in her
artistry -- and much of it is sorely lacking in modern music making:
individuality, personality, enthusiasm, drama, and excitement born of
a love of the communicative capacity of the art. Here is an
artist reveling in the physical and spiritual thrill of communicating
to listeners through music.
American Record Guide
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| Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
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Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto / Saint-Saëns: Havanaise
Massenet: Meditation
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©2008-2001 Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg
comments@nadjasalernosonnenberg.com
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