Michael Steinberg, musicologist, lecturer, narrator, writer, critic, teacher and chamber music coach, has served as program annotator of the San Francisco Symphony, the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has provided notes for the Metropolitan and New York City operas, the Edinburgh and Adelaide festivals, the London Proms and for major classical record labels.

Artistic adviser for the San Francisco Symphony’s for ten years, he later held the same post with the Minnesota Orchestra, where he was also artistic director of the annual Viennese Sommerfest. An active lecturer, he has given talks for major orchestras in London, the US and Australia; led music and arts discussions and a poetry reading workshop for Music@Menlo; and is a frequent commentator on National Public Radio.

Steinberg has performed a wide repertory of speaking and Sprechstimme parts in works of Beethoven, Copland, Haydn, Aaron Jay Kernis, August Klughardt, Liszt, Tobias Picker, Schoenberg, Schumann, Stravinsky, Walton and others.

Steinberg’s writings and lectures earned praise for their ability to translate the emotion and passion of music into colorful descriptions in rich historical contexts. Three collections of his program essays, The Symphony: A Listener’s Guide (1995), The Concerto: A Listener’s Guide (1998), and Choral Masterworks (2005), as well as For Love of Music (2006), a collection of essays by Steinberg and Larry Rothe, were published by Oxford University Press.

Born in Germany and educated in England, Steinberg was trained in musicology at Princeton. As a Fulbright Fellow in Rome, he contributed critical pieces on the Italian music scene to The New York Times. After military service, he headed the history department at Manhattan School of Music. Steinberg was the music critic of The Boston Globe for 12 years.

A recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, he holds an honorary doctorate from the New England Conservatory. He has been a consultant to the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, among other organizations.

photo Jorja Fleezanis