PHOTO BY TERRENCE MCCARTHY
the secrets to her unique and bold interpretations of violin repertoire (her)” that she cannot simply play the piece “the way (she) learned it both old and new? She replied that her experience with such a wide or the way (she) rehearsed it at ten o’clock this morning.” variety of music of different eras and different styles allows her to Nadja Solerno-Sonnenberg’s performances are frequent highlights see things in works that are of Chicago’s musical calendar. Her often overlooked. “It’s like recent national tour with New (being) a computer that’s Century featured an appearance got tons of data in it,” she at Northwestern University’s explained. Music is a lanPick-Staiger Concert Hall, guage made up of very few where the ensemble’s program variables, she elaborated: “A included Hugo Wolf’s Italian very few number of notes… Serenade and Béla Bartók’s arranged in a different order Romanian Folk Dances. As a makes up Happy Birthday soloist, she appeared in 2009 at or The Rite of Spring.” the Ravinia Festival performMastering that language is ing her beloved Shostakovich a matter of understanding First Violin Concerto with the the different ways composChicago Symphony Orchestra. ers express emotion through As the renowned violinist extheir own organization of plained, Chicago is a city of the twelve notes at their disprime importance to her. “I posal. Ultimately, Salernohave so much personally inSonnenberg emphasized, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and members of The New Century Chamber Orchestra. vested in Chicago,” she told me. interpretation “is an emotional The city was the site of some of response” to the music. And music is so rich that a seasoned performer her earliest performances and has left her with very fond memories. will be attuned to several layers of emotional content even in a single “When you’re a kid … and you get a gig with the Chicago Symphony measure. This is why Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg rarely plays the same Orchestra, I cannot tell you what that means,” she said. And aside piece the same way twice. Each time she revisits a work of music— from her personal connection to the city, she considers the Chicago even a work like Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, which she estimates Symphony Orchestra to be “the greatest orchestra in the world.” to have played at least three thousand times—“so many things occur to
Z_`ZX^fg\iXk_\Xk\i Brian Dickie, General Director Don't Miss
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