Stubborn Breathing Heart

As a kid growing up in the Chicago Area Scott Steiner was constantly amazed by things with buttons and blinking lights and quickly developed a strong desire to both understand their function and how to put them to use. Listening to recordings of the great jazz vocalists of the 40s, 50s and 60s spinning on his father's turntable sparked a strong interest in music and how it is made. Piano and trombone lessons along with playing in bands and writing songs advanced his curiosity.

Steiner embarked into the professional world as a recording engineer and eventually a music producer in Chicago's thriving music scene.  Eventually Steiner relocated to the Bay Area working out of the legendary Record Plant in Sausalito.  He also toured around the world mixing front of house sound for acts on the road.

In 2007 Steiner was approached by Dan Pritzker to help record and edit music for a set of two films about the birth of jazz in New Orleans.  The first titled Louis is a silent film about Louis Armstrong as a kid for which Steiner created a score with Pritzker’s direction from Louis Moreau Gottschalk classical piano music and traditional jazz by Wynton Marsalis.  Marsalis re-wrote part of the jazz half of the score, arranged it for 12 pieces and the score was recorded for the film in Tarrytown Music Hall in New York.  A tour commenced featuring projection of the film and live performances by Cecile Licad on piano and Wynton Marsalis and band across the United States and in London.

For the second film, Bolden, Steiner wrote the score for half of the film, edited the second half of the score from Mark Isham, handled all of the music seen on screen, created sound design, helped mix the film, led all of the musicians and actors on set and handled playback of music during filming.  A series of seven recording sessions with Wynton Marsalis and band led to traditional jazz music from the 1907 setting the film recreates.  The final mix was completed at Skywalker Sound and the film was released in 2019 to theaters and now streams on Amazon Prime and Epix cable channel.

After being introduced to the world of film Steiner wrote, directed and filmed his own short film entitled Elusory in 2016.  His next film is in pre-production.

Steiner continues to create sound design, score and mix short and feature length indie documentaries and narrative films.  In early 2022 he will release his first record with his band NovemberYesvember.

Steiner co-designed and helped install a world class music recording and film post-production facility in San Rafael, California that he now works out of.  He also works part time out of his own studio in a loft in SoHo, Manhattan.  Outside of film and music Steiner loves to play ice hockey and ultimate frisbee and loves to explore outside of the United States whenever possible.