Russell Steinberg
composer
About this Artist
Composer and pianist Russell Steinberg was selected for the 2024 Musical America Top 30 Professionals of the Year. His music has been described as “floating, luminous” (Boston Globe), “freshly lyrical, pulsating, edgy, infectious” (New York Concert Review), and “deeper while maintaining a descriptive surface” (Fanfare Magazine). The Los Angeles Youth Orchestra recently premiered Cirrus Nimbus and performed it in Vienna and Prague. His piano trio Paleface is available on Albany records, recorded by Trio Accento. Three orchestras, the New West Symphony in Los Angeles, the Bay Atlantic Symphony in New Jersey, and the Hopkins Symphony Orchestra in Baltimore commissioned and premiered Cosmic Dust, a work that Science News Magazine featured in its issue celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope. A Daniel Pearl Foundation commission, Stories From My Favorite Planet, tells the story of Wall Street Journalist Daniel Pearl, alternating music with readings of Pearl’s own brilliant tragi-comic articles. Steinberg’s Hanukkah fantasy Lights On! is being performed this year by the Bay Atlantic Symphony in New Jersey, the Hopkins Symphony in Baltimore, the Lakeview Orchestra in Chicago, and the Southeast Kansas Symphony in Pittsburg, Kansas.
Steinberg’s music has received awards and grants from ASCAP (Young Composers Grant and ASCAPLUS), Composers Inc., NACUSA, MacDowell Colony, Aspen Composer Fellowships, First Prize in the New World String Quartet competition, the HEAR NOW Festival, a Gold Medal Jury’s Choice at the Park City Film Music Festival, the California Association of Professional Music Teachers (CAPMT), and the Jewish Center for Culture and Creativity. Works from his catalog of nearly one hundred works of solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral music have been performed in the United States and worldwide.
Steinberg is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Youth Orchestra, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary and embarks on a Carnegie Tour in Summer 2026. He is also a popular preconcert lecturer for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. An enthusiastic fan base from around the world participates in his Zoom music lecture series on various musical topics and composers, as well as his Classical Listening Hangouts.
Steinberg holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, studying with Pulitzer prize-winning composer Leon Kirchner, an M.M. from the New England Conservatory studying with Arthur Berger, and a B.A. summa cum laude from UCLA with Elaine Barkin, Roy Travis, and Paul Reale. His early instrumental and composition teachers were Dorothy Compinsky (piano, classical guitar, violin), Kenneth Klauss (composition), Earle C. Voorhies (piano), Salome Arkatov (piano), and Ron Purcell (classical guitar).