Victor Steinhardt

Since his debut as piano soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at age 15, Victor Steinhardt has impressed audiences throughout the United States with his warmth, virtuosity, sensitivity and style. He has performed extensively as soloist with orchestras, in solo recitals, and in chamber ensembles. He has been a featured artist at the Oregon Bach Festival, the Oregon Coast Music Festival, the Ernst Bloch Music Festival, the Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming, the Mohawk Trails Concerts in Massachusetts, the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival in California, Chamber Music Northwest in Oregon, and Barge music in New York.

As a chamber musician he has collaborated with many outstanding artists, including cellists Leonard Rose, Jules Eskin and Ron Leonard; violinists Arnold Steinhardt, Ida Kavafian, Josef Suk, and Pamela Frank; violist Michael Tree; clarinetist David Shifrin; flutist Ransom Wilson; and the Penderecki, Peterson, Angeles, LaFayette, and Guarneri String Quartets.

Mr. Steinhardt has received wide acclaim for several of his compositions. His appreciation of various American popular styles, such as jazz, early rock-and -roll, blue-grass, and country-western, has carried over into some of his recent “classical art-music” compositions. Sonata Boogie for violin and piano, Running Blue for clarinet, violin and piano, and Einhelden boogie for piano solo are large-scale works of both serious and entertaining character and have been enthusiastically received by audiences all over the country. He has had recent premieres of a new piano trio, several short pieces for violin and piano, a piano quartet (two movements of which were commissioned by the Schubert Ensemble of London), and Figment for three violas and cello, written for the Oregon String Quartet.

Mr. Steinhardt’s recordings include chamber works by Jon Deak (CRI); David Schiff’s Scenes from Adolescence (Delos); An American Sampler (Olympic), songs of Bartok and Kodaly (Vox-Turnabout); with his brother Arnold Steinhardt, works by Robert Fuchs for viola with piano and violin with piano (Biddulph); and with violinist Fritz Gearhart, works by William Grant Still (Koch). The Oregon Arts Commission awarded Steinhardt a Fellowship Grant to facilitate the production of a CD recording of his own compositions (“Sonata Boogie”), available from Town Hall Records (THCD52). Included are works for solo piano, duos for violin and viola with piano (with brother, Arnold) and piano four hands (with wife Mary).

Mr. Steinhardt has been a professor of piano at the University of Oregon School of Music since1968. During that time he has been a soloist many times with the Eugene Symphony, the Oregon Mozart Players, the Oregon Festival of American Music, Eugene Ballet, and Ballet Northwest. With violinist Kathryn Lucktenberg and cellist Steven Pologe he has performed throughout Oregon and in Washington, Wyoming, Hawaii and Taiwan as a member of Trio Pacifica.

Meanwhile the press eloquently exercises its verbal virtuosity:

“...playing so warm, secure, aware of essentials and so deeply involved.”(Brahms’ first concerto)—Albert Goldberg, Los Angeles Times.

“The soft and pearly playing of Victor Steinhardt in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.6 in B flat (K.238) established the light joyousness and tender qualities of this youthful work.”—Robert Commanday, San Francisco Chronicle

“Extraordinary pianist Victor Steinhardt gave a flawless and exciting reading of Rhapsody in Blue.”—Fred Crafts, Eugene Register Guard

“...a superbly sensitive pianist in the probing Schnabel tradition. There was deep musical satisfaction in Victor Steinhardt’s penetrating illumination...”—Miami Herald “Victor Steinhardt is a composer who buys styles like so many recipe ingredients and then fashions feasts/feats of considerable delectation and imagination.”--Fanfare

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