Ferdinand Steiner is principal clarinet with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg. Alongside his orchestral activities he performs internationally as a chamber musician and soloist, appearing at famous concert venues such as the Brucknerhaus Linz, the Philharmonie am Gasteig, the Alte Oper Frankfurt and the Endler Hall in South Africa. Since 2019 he is guest principal soloist at the Suntory Hall in Tokyo. He also performs at famous festivals including the Salzburg Festival and Mozartwoche, the Grafenegg Festival, the Carinthian Summer Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Mattseer Diabelli Sommer, La Folle Journée de Nantes and the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival.
As a guest principal clarinettist, he has performed with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne, the Munich Radio Orchestra and Camerata Salzburg, and has worked with conductors including Claudio Abbado, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Muti, Kirill Petrenko, Neville Marriner, Giuseppe Sinopoli and Franz Welser-Möst. He is a founding member of the Salzburg Orchestra Soloists and together with his siblings performs in the Steiner Quintett Salzburg.
He was born in Aichkirchen near Lambach in Upper Austria, the third of seven children (one of his sisters is a violinist in the Tonkunstler Orchestra of Lower Austria, and his brother Andreas is a percussionist and timpanist in the Mozarteum Orchestra). He studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, going on to complete a postgraduate degree at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg with Alois Brandhofer. During his studies he worked as a substitute musician with the Vienna Philharmonic, at the Vienna State Opera and in the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra.
His discography includes the albums Ferdiggietto. Music for Clarinet, Johannes Brahms — Der konservative Revolutionär and Hofmeyr: Duo Sonatas.
Ferdinand Steiner gives masterclasses in Japan and in South Africa.
