Olga Steeb

Olga Steeb was the daughter of Carl Egon Steeb and Sophie S. Steeb, both German immigrants living in Los Angeles.[1] Her father, a French horn player, was said to have taught his daughter to memorize hundreds of compositions as a child,[2] and she was performing in concerts by 1904.[3] She studied piano with Thilo Becker.[4]

Steeb performed across the United States and in Europe,[5][6][7] in solo performances and as part of the Griffes Group with mezzo-soprano Edna Thomas and violinist Sacha Jacobinoff.[8] She was featured as a soloist at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915, in San Francisco.[9] She made her New York debut in 1919, at the Aeolian Hall.[10] Once, in 1921, she was called from the audience to the stage to perform a concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, without rehearsal or advanced notice, when the scheduled pianist, Mischa Levitzki, was injured.[11] She played at the Hollywood Bowl in 1922.[12] In 1923, she played a radio concerts with retired violinist Lili Petschnikoff.[13]

Steeb was head of the music departments at the University of Redlands from 1915 to 1919, and at the University of Southern California from 1919 to 1923.[14] The Olga Steeb Piano School operated on Wilshire Boulevard from 1923 to 1942.[15] Olga Steeb's piano students included Leonard Pennario, composer Elinor Remick Warren, composer Harry Partch[16] and organist David Craighead.[17]

Her sisters Norma Steeb and Lillian Steeb French continued running the piano school a while past Olga Steeb's death.[18]

Olga Steeb married twice. Her first husband was fellow musician Charles H. Keefer. They married in 1911[19] and divorced in 1916.[20] She married again in 1919, to Charles Edward Hubach, a vocal teacher who became her manager.[21] Olga Steeb was a widow when she died in Los Angeles in late 1941, from cancer, aged about 55 years.[22][23][24]