Frances Steiner

Steiner has received a number of awards, including the Conductors Guild Prize in the American Conductors’ Competition (1978), the Mu Phi Epsilon Professional Music Fraternity’s Elizabeth Mathias Award (1998) and Award of Merit (2003), and the Outstanding Professor Award at California State University, Dominguez Hills (1991). In addition, the Chamber Orchestra of the South Bay has been awarded several NEA grants, and the Carson-Dominguez Hills Symphony was honored with the Arts and Humanities Award of the National Recreation and Park Association, Southwest Regional Council (1988).

In 1974, Steiner became the Music Director of the Chamber Orchestra of the South Bay (formerly the Baroque Consortium Chamber Orchestra), a post she still holds today; making Steiner the longest-serving music director in the history of the orchestra. Steiner served a 31-year tenure as the Music Director of the Carson-Dominguez Hills Symphony Orchestra (1977–2008). In addition, she succeeded Hans Lampl to serve as the Music Director of the Compton Civic Symphony from 1974 to 1978.

At a time when women were not accepted into the ranks of many major symphony orchestras, Steiner's pursuit of a career in conducting seemed impossible, Barbar Jepson wrote in Feminist Art Journal. In 1974, when Steiner became the Music Director of the Compton Civic Symphony, she was one of only four women in the United States to hold such a post. Three years later, in 1977, she became the first woman to conduct a professional orchestra from the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Los Angeles Music Center. In the same year Steiner conducted at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the 146 conductors of the major symphony, regional and metropolitan orchestras in the United States and Canada were all male.

In 1965, Frances Steiner married an attorney, Mervin I. Tarlow. In 1975, she gave birth to a daughter, Sarah Leah Tarlow, also an attorney.

Frances Steiner (born February 25, 1937) is an American conductor, cellist and professor emeritus. Steiner is known for her advocacy of American music, especially works by women and African Americans, and for her expertise in 18th century performance practices. She has directed a number of world and West coast premieres of composers such as Ellen Zwilich, George Walker, and Augusta Read Thomas. She is currently the Music Director of the Chamber Orchestra of the South Bay in Los Angeles.

Steiner's father, Ferenz Joseph Steiner, was a Hungarian cellist who emigrated to the United States in 1908. After living in both New York and Detroit, he moved to Los Angeles. It was the era when films were made without scores, and Ferenz Joseph found work in a Hollywood movie house orchestra. He later moved to Portland, Oregon where he became the Principal Cellist of the Portland Symphony Orchestra and married Elizabeth Levy. Their first daughter, Diana, was a child prodigy who won a scholarship in violin to the Curtis Institute of Music. Diana's scholarship to Curtis prompted the family’s move to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1945, Frances followed in the footsteps of her older sister, by winning a cello scholarship to Curtis. At the age of 13, Steiner appeared as a cello soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra.