Salerno-Sonnenberg was born in Rome. She immigrated with her family to the United States at the age of eight, relocating to Cherry Hill, New Jersey. She studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and later with Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School of Music. In 1981, she became the youngest-ever prizewinner in the Walter W. Naumburg International Violin Competition. She has been honored with an Avery Fisher Career Grant (1983), and in 1999 she received the Avery Fisher Prize, for "outstanding achievement and excellence in music." In 1994, Salerno-Sonnenberg badly injured one of her fingers in a kitchen accident, a potentially career-ending injury. Her fingertip was surgically reattached, and by 1996 she returned to performing.[1] She has been a frequent guest on NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and has also been featured on 60 Minutes. In May 1999, 60 Minutes II aired a follow-up to 60 Minutes' 1986 feature about her. She has also appeared on the sitcom Dharma & Greg. Salerno-Sonnenberg has released many recordings on the Angel/EMI Classics, Nonesuch, and NSS Music labels. She has performed with orchestras around the world and played at the White House. She has also performed with such popular artists as Mandy Patinkin, Joe Jackson, and Mark O'Connor. She has frequently collaborated with the pianist Anne-Marie McDermott. In 1989, she wrote Nadja: On My Way (ISBN 051757392X. ISBN 978-0-517-57392-1), an autobiography written for children. In May 1999 she received an honorary Master of Musical Arts degree from New Mexico State University, the university's first honorary degree. She is also the subject of Paola di Florio's documentary Speaking in Strings, released by Docurama. Salerno-Sonnenberg was selected as the Music Director of the New Century Chamber Orchestra, which she began leading in the fall of 2008.[2] Salerno-Sonnenberg holds U.S. patent no. 5,121,928, for a movie-trivia board game.