American Conductor

Emma R. Steiner was one of the first women in the United States to earn a living as a conductor, leading more than 6,000 performances over her lifetime. She was also the first woman to conduct a theater orchestra in New York. Her career, which began in the 1870s with touring comic opera companies, spanned nearly five decades until her death in 1929.

Steiner was born into a musically inclined family. Her father, Colonel Frederick Steiner, was a hero of the Mexican War, while her mother was a skilled pianist. Exposed to music from an early age, Steiner’s path to professional musicianship remains somewhat unclear, but by the age of 21, she had left her family to pursue a career in music. She moved to Chicago, where she became the assistant music director for the Rice and Collier Opera Company, led by American musical-theatre composer E. E. Rice.

Over the years, Steiner worked with notable figures such as George Baker, Maurice Grau, and Julius Howe. She also collaborated with Heinrich Conried, the Metropolitan Opera Director from 1903 to 1908, who considered allowing her to conduct at the MET. However, societal prejudices against her gender ultimately prevented this opportunity. Undeterred, Steiner demonstrated her pioneering spirit by founding the Emma R. Steiner Gaiety Opera Company in the late 1890s—one of the first female-led and female-focused opera companies in the United States.

In a surprising turn, Steiner temporarily paused her music career to pan for gold in Nome, Alaska, where she worked as a prospector in the tin mining fields northwest of the city. Despite this adventurous chapter, she eventually returned to music, continuing to write and perform into the 1920s.