Stuart Canin served as New Century's first music director from 1992 to 1999, and formerly as
Concertmaster of the
San Francisco Symphony, the
San Francisco Opera, and the
Los Angeles Opera under Music Director
James Conlon and General Director
Plácido Domingo. He also served as Concertmaster of the
New Japan Philharmonic in the 1990s, performing and touring under
Seiji Ozawa and
Mstislav Rostropovich. Mr. Canin was born in New York City and studied at
Juilliard, where his principal teacher was
Ivan Galamian. Mr. Canin won the International
Paganini Competition in Genoa and the Handel Medal from the city of New York. He served as Concertmaster in Hollywood for
studio orchestras, performing on such films as ''
Schindler's List, Titanic and Forrest Gump''. Mr. Canin was scheduled return to the NCCO in April 2008 to lead a program of
Shostakovich,
Mendelssohn, and
Mozart. A native of Menlo Park, California,
Krista Bennion Feeney served as New Century's Music Director and
Concertmaster from 1999 to 2006. She is currently Concertmaster of the
Mostly Mozart Festival at
Lincoln Center during the summer and Co-Concertmaster of the Orchestra of St. Luke's year-round at
Carnegie Hall and throughout the summer at the
Caramoor Festival in Katonah, New York. Ms. Feeney has performed as a soloist with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the
St. Louis Symphony, the
San Francisco Symphony, the New York String Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, the
Kennedy Center, the Brandenburg Ensemble and the
Elgin Symphony Orchestra, among others. As a member of the Loma Mar quartet, she recorded new quartet compositions by
Paul McCartney for his 1999 CD entitled Working Classical (EMI Records). She was a student of Isadore Tinkelman and Stuart Canin's at the
San Francisco Conservatory, and later studied with
Jaime Laredo and Felix Galimer at the
Curtis Institute of Music. American violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg served as New Century's Music Director from 2008 to 2017. Her 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 1999, she was honored with the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize. Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg was born in Rome and immigrated 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. In addition to her solo career with orchestras all over the world, she has hosted the Backstage/Live from Lincoln Center program for PBS and was the subject of the 2000 Academy Award-nominated film, Speaking in Strings, a documentary on her life, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Further TV interview appearances include 60 Minutes, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and The Charlie Rose Show. She currently serves as Extraordinary Faculty/Director of Chamber Orchestra Loyola University, College of Music and Fine Arts, New Orleans after previously serving as Resident Artist. ==Current Music Director==