Anyone can learn how to hold a violin and tighten a bow. More determination can achieve a firm wrist, relaxed shoulders and a proper bow hand.

But it takes more than good technique to mold a virtuoso.

Since Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg learned all the technical rules of the fiddle before she was old enough to read, she has had most of her life to concentrate on the indispensable technique of artistry.

Because of her unwavering devotion to her instrument, the Rome, Italy-born prodigy has been described as a forerunner in her game, always providing a special kind of energy that hasn’t been equaled by any of her colleagues.

“It’s a very committed style of playing,” she says from her New York City apartment. “It has something to do with a classical musician’s mold that was broken. What a classical musician should act like or look like or historically what they’ve done on stage is not what I did at any point, ever.”

Salerno-Sonnenberg’s entire life has been an example of what most musicians have never done at any point, ever.

Raised as a poster child violin prodigy, she began her training at just 5 years old.

“I studied with an orchestra member with an Italian orchestra background, and he’s the one who told my mother that he felt I had a lot of potential, and perhaps she should consider taking me to the states to study,” she remembers. “So, she took me over to the States when I was 8 years old.”

As soon as Salerno-Sonnenberg arrived from overseas, she enrolled in the prestigious, Philadelphia-based Curtis Institute of Music.

Throughout her childhood, Salerno-Sonnenberg worked tirelessly to perfect her art, and her efforts were rewarded when she won the coveted Walter W. Naumburg International Violin Competition in 1981.

“I’ve been professional since then,” Salerno-Sonnenberg says.

During Salerno-Sonnenberg’s 18-year professional career, she has performed with most of the world’s greatest conductors and orchestras and has graced stages in cities everywhere from Washington D.C. to Houston to Montreal.

But Salerno-Sonnenberg’s career has not always been a storybook success. In 1994, the virtuoso accidentally sliced off the end of her pinky while she was slicing vegetables in her kitchen and was forced to rethink her musical future.

“I didn’t think I’d ever play again,” she says indifferently. “But I have the ability to do many things. Unfortunately, I can’t do all the things I know I can do or want to do.

“Having said that, I wouldn’t give up my life for anything.”

At age 38, Salerno-Sonnenberg lives a life most aspiring concert violinists only dream about. When she’s not practicing her Guarnerius, she’s likely on a tour or recording a new CD for her existing 15-album collection.

Signed with Nonesuch and Angel/EMI, the busy violinist is always looking for new ways to resurrect old classics and invent new ones.

Her latest project, which is scheduled to be released in January of 2000, is a recording of gypsy music from Eastern Europe with the guitarists the Assads.

“Each [album] that you do has a different set of challenges,” she relates. “The last record was extremely challenging because it’s not classical, and I played with two Brazilian guitarists’ original music one of them wrote.

“To just blend in with the guitar is pretty hard. They’re brothers, they’ve played together their whole life. They breathe together. To try to fit into that is extremely challenging, plus, the music is very complex, and like I said, it wasn’t classical, so that was extremely challenging.”

Along with other extraordinary classical talents such as Joshua Bell and Yo Yo Ma, Salerno-Sonnenberg has been sauntering in and out of the classical realm, experimenting with repertoire that isn’t standard. For Sunday’s Ames concert, Salerno-Sonnenberg plans to offer a few contemporary arrangements from Gershwin’s opera, “Porgy and Bess.”

“I think it’s an option for us at certain points in our careers if we feel the calling,” she says. “I’ve been asked for years to do projects that were non-classical, and I never did them until about three years ago.

“I think if it’s organic and it feels right, and it’s something you truly want to do, then that’s always the best way to make decisions, not because it might help records.”

Record sales aren’t exactly the most pressing thing on Salerno-Sonnenberg’s mind as she chats from her apartment. Actually, the only thing she’s struggling with is trying to muster enough vocal chords to answer the next question.

“I have no voice today,” she apologizes. “I went to the World Series game last night.”