Steven Schoenberg

Steven Schoenberg
Schoenberg after a performance at Sweeney Concert Hall, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, on March 16, 2012.
Background information
Born	(1952-10-17) October 17, 1952 (age 64) Springfield, Massachusetts
Occupation(s)	Composer, songwriter, film composer, pianist
Instruments	Piano
Website	stevenschoenberg.com

Steven Schoenberg (born October 17, 1952) is an American composer, songwriter, film composer, and pianist. His work includes film scores for Emmy Award-winning films, classical compositions, children's music, and musical theater. As of 2015^[update] he has recorded four noted albums of piano improvisations. Schoenberg is co-founder and CEO at Learn With A Beat, LLC, and with his wife, children's book author Jane Schoenberg, develops educational apps for children. They have two children, actress Sarah Kate Jackson and composer Adam Schoenberg.

Schoenberg studied classical piano from age seven through his years at The Hartt School, where he majored in and received a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Composition in 1975. At Hartt, Schoenberg studied with Arnold Franchetti and Norman Dinerstein. Schoenberg started improvising on the piano at age two and played "God Bless America" for his nursery school graduation. When he was twelve, Schoenberg's parents took him to see Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway. After that experience, he composed his first song, setting music to Edgar Allan Poe's poem Annabel Lee, and joined his first rock band, performing on one of the original Farfisa organs. In 1971, at Hartt, Schoenberg helped form NSH a rock trio first produced by Fred Hellerman of The Weavers. After graduating, he left the band and landed a job in Manhattan, writing television and radio commercials for music production agency Sherman and Kahn.

For children's television, Schoenberg has composed songs for Sesame Street and scored animations for the Children's Television Workshop's 3-2-1 Contact and short films for the 1999 PBS TV series Zoom. In 2005, he composed music for the award-winning children's book and CD My Bodyworks, written by his wife, Jane. He was one of the executive producers as well as musical director and composer for Kid Quest, a children's TV pilot airing on WGBY-TV/PBS. It won the 2007 New England Emmy Awards for Best Director and Outstanding Children's Program. In 2014, Steven and Jane formed Learn With A Beat, LLC, partnering with 21iLab, located in Zürich, Switzerland, and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to produce and develop interactive and educational iOS, and Android apps, whose mission is to inspire and challenge young children. Their debut series, My Bodyworks, designed for five- to nine-year-olds, launches in 2015, inviting kids to understand and discover how their bodies work, in playful and creative ways.