Frances Steiner, Music Director
FRANCES STEINER has been the Music Director of the Chamber Orchestra of the South Bay since its inception, where she has received recognition from the Los Angeles Times for providing "wonderfully vital and crisply executed performances." Dr. Steiner made musical history when she became the first woman to conduct a professional orchestra (the Glendale Symphony) from the stage of the Los Angeles Music Center's Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. She also conducts the Carson-Dominguez Symphony, and her guest conducting includes appearances with the Bay Area Women's Philharmonic, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Long Beach Symphony, Oakland Symphony and the National Symphony Orchestra of the Dominican Republic.
At the age of eight, Frances Steiner's musical education was launched with a scholarship to study with Gregor Piatigorsky at the Curtis Institute of Music. Her studies were enriched with summers at the Marlboro Music Festival where she performed and studied with Rudolf Serkin, Eugene Istomin and Alexander Schneider, and at the Meadowmount School of Music where she also studied with Leonard Rose. These opportunities were funded with scholarships from Curtis. After graduating from Curtis with a bachelor degree in music, she went on to study composition with Walter Piston and Randall Thompson at Harvard University where she received an M.A. She studied conducting at the Fontainbleau School of Music in Fontainbleau, France, under Nadia Boulanger, and received a D.M.A. from the University of Southern California where she majored in cello and conducting. Post-graduate studies include master classes with Daniel Lewis and Leonard Bernstein.
Her multi-faceted career includes cello solo appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Glendale symphony; recitals and chamber music concerts at Town Hall (NYC), the Kennedy Center (Washington DC); and principal cellist chairs with the California Chamber Symphony, Glendale Symphony, Festival Orchestra (Lincoln Center), and assistant principal chair in the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. The conductors (and Steiner's role models) of these orchestras include: Leopold Stokowski, Carmen Dragon, Daniel Lewis, and Neville Marriner. In the world of academia, Dr. Steiner is a Professor of Music at California State University, Dominguez Hills.
Mission & History of the COSB
The primary mission of the COSB is to serve as the fully-professional classical orchestra resident in a South Bay venue of Los Angeles (It is now the only such such orchestra-Long Beach is not officially part of the South Bay). Over the past fifteen years the COSB has grown to the point where it sells-out through subscription at the 450-seat Norris Theatre in Palos Verdes, where it is the official resident orchestra. The COSB has been recognized by the California Arts Council (a 2001 debriefing stated: “a very high quality professional orchestra”). In 1998 the COSB was awarded its first Grant by the National Endowment of the Arts, and in 2001, 2004 and 2006 received additional grants. The COSB has received favorable reviews from the press, including a Los Angeles Times "rave" review by senior music critic Dan Cariaga (see Reviews).Our long-run objective is to bring our entire season of sold-out concerts at the Norris Theatre, as run-out performances, to other venues in the South Bay, if this can be done on an economically viable basis.
MAJOR DONORS
Major donors of the COSB have included the following:
THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS
THE CALIFORNIA ARTS COUNCIL
THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY ARTS COMMISSION
THE NORRIS FOUNDATION
TOYOTA MOTOR SALES USA
THE ANN AND GORDON GETTY FOUNDATION
THE E.NAKAMICHI FOUNDATION
BOEING SATELLITE SYSTEMS
NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORPORATION-INTEGRATED SYSTEMS