About
Sophie Steiner is an Austrian harpist and artistic director. She started her musical education at the age of 4 years and was awarded first prizes in national and international competitions. She won her first audition for entering an orchestra at the age of 14 and can now look back on a variety of productions with orchestras such as the “Hamburg Symphony Orchestra“, the “Lübecker Kammerphilharmonie“, or the “Hessischer Rundfunk Orchestra“. Besides her interests in solo, orchestral, and chamber music, she also promotes the development of new concert concepts and performances and was therefore awarded the Masefield prize 2015. Since then she has been constantly working on new performance designs and productions and initiated several projects in Europe and Asia. She performed, amongst others, for the Austrian embassies in Spain, Japan, and Norway and founded the project BreakingBorders, which aims to overcome cultural, social, and personal borders through music. She collaborates with ensembles and orchestras and designs new concert concepts to overcome the wall between musicians and audience. Among others she was the artistic director for the project "SoundColours" in cooperation with the Kammerphilharmonie Lübeck - creating an artistic space where music becomes visual art and cultures merge into one. Sophie Steiner was a student of Xavier de Maistre, Mari Kimura, and Isabelle Perrin. In addition, she participated in several masterclasses with musical authorities such as Catherine Michel (France), Isabelle Moretti (France), Margit Anna Süß-Schellenberger (Germany), Aneleen Laenarts (Belgium), Sylvain Blassel (France), Judy Loman (Canada), Nancy Allen (USA) or Ernestine Stoop (Netherlands), to broaden her artistic knowledge. Since 2016, she has been working with composers to expand the harp's repertoire. For example, "Lamento d' Orfeo" by Fredrick Schwenk, "Intermezzo" by Niklas Anczykowski, or "Der Frühling" by Tony Uhm were composed for her. In 2022 she performed the world premiere of Kobayashi Akira's Harp Concerto No. 5 with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra. She has founded the Shirabe festival to enhance intercultural understanding, respect, and exchange worldwide through art and continues her work as an artistic director and harpist on an international stage. In 2022 she was prize winner of the Maria Ladenburger competition and featured through the WDR radio station as well as 1st prize winner of the Caneres international music competition.