Born: July 17, 1932 (Portland, OR)

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Diana Steiner received her professional training from the Curtis Institute of Music (Mus.B.) where she received her diploma in 1949 and a bachelor of music degree in 1957. She also studied at the University of Southern California receving a master of music degree in 1970. Her studies were with Efrem Zimbalist and Jascha Heifetz and chamber music studies  with Rudolph Serkin, William Primrose, Adolph Busch, Alexander Schneider and Marcel Moyse.

As a teacher of violin and piano, early on, Miss Steiner realized that there were numerous opportunities for piano students to play simplified versions of great classics, while her violin students had little or no such material. She therefore created a whole body of arrangements of composers’ music from Baroque through Romantic. Levels begin at high beginner (second year), through intermediate. Much of the levels are in first position. All are faithful to the originals and in most cases in the same key signature. She is a certified Master Teacher with the Music Teachers National Association.

Both as a soloist and in ensemble, she has played throughout the United States, appearing as soloist with the New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Washington, Balitimore, and Chicago Symphonies, working with such conductors as Leonard Bernstein, Serge Koussevitsky, Eugene Ormandy, Lorin Maazel, Andre Kostelanetz, and Mehli Mehta.

She has performed at the festivals of Chatauqua, Marlboro, Tanglewood, and Brevard. Miss Steiner has toured in recitals under the auspices of Columbia Artist Management and the National Federation of Music Clubs. Among her awards and honors are the Friday Morning Music Club of Washington, D.C., the National Young Artist Award from the National Federation of Music Clubs, and the New York Town Hall Debut Award from the Naumburg Foundation.

A lifelong exponent of new music, she has premiered and performed works by many American composers such as Halsey Stevens, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Elinor Remick Warren, David Diamond, Ingolf Dahl and Paul Creston.

In addition to her performance credits Ms. Steiner has been host/producer of the “Air for Strings” series and several major radio portraits over NPR radio; guest string editor for American String Teacher and California Music Teacher magazines; violin and chamber music faculty at Loyola Marymount and USC universities, Settlement Music School, Philadelphia and Staff Accompanist at Curtis Institute of Music.

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Excerpt from The New York Times review, October 8, 1952

Naumburg Winner Has A Recital Debut

Diana Steiner, Violinist Plays Hindemith, Creston, Bach and Mendelssohn in Town Hall

"played with the poise and address of a veteran...There is no question of Miss Steiner's natural bent for the fiddle. She has been playing it long enough to have developed an assured command over it...her playing yesterday was clean and secure, and in difficult problems technically, such as the long legato line of the Hindemith sonata, she proved that she had something as valuable as sound training -- a gift for the violin." Howard Taubman