William Steinberg has been played on NTS shows including Hustlekat, with Symphony No. 7 first played on 15 December 2020.

William Steinberg (Cologne, August 1, 1899 – New York City, May 16, 1978) was a German-American conductor.

Steinberg was born Hans Wilhelm Steinberg in Cologne, Germany. He displayed early talent as a violinist, pianist, and composer, conducting his own choral/orchestral composition (based on texts from Ovid's Metamorphoses) at age 13. In 1914, he began studies at the Cologne Conservatory, where his piano teacher was the Clara Schumann pupil Lazzaro Uzielli and his conducting mentor was Hermann Abendroth. He graduated with distinction, winning the Wüllner Prize for conducting, in 1919. He immediately became a second violinist in the Cologne Opera orchestra, but was dismissed from the position by Otto Klemperer for using his own bowings. He was soon re-hired by Klemperer as an assistant, and in 1922, he conducted Fromental Halévy's opera La Juive as a substitute. When Klemperer left in 1924, Steinberg served as Principal Conductor. He left a year later, in 1925, for Prague, where he was conductor of the German Theater. He next took the position of music director of the Frankfurt Opera. In 1930, in Frankfurt, he conducted the world premiere of Arnold Schoenberg's Von heute auf morgen.

In 1933, Steinberg was relieved of his post by the Nazis because he was Jewish. According to the grandson of composer Ernst Toch, Steinberg was "rehearsing [Toch's opera Der Fächer (The Fan)] in Cologne when Nazi brownshirts came storming into the hall and literally lifted the baton out of his hand". Steinberg, who had married Lotte Stern in Frankfurt in 1934, was then restricted to conducting concerts for the Jewish Culture League in Frankfurt and Berlin. The Steinbergs left Germany in 1936 for the British Mandate of Palestine, which is now Israel. Eventually, with co-founder Bronisław Huberman, Steinberg trained the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, which would later be known as the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Steinberg was conducting the orchestra when Arturo Toscanini visited there in 1936. Toscanini was impressed with Steinberg's preliminary groundwork for his concerts and later engaged him as an assistant in preparing for the NBC Symphony Orchestra radio broadcasts.

Steinberg emigrated to the United States in 1938. He conducted a number of concerts with the NBC Symphony Orchestra from 1938 to 1940. He conducted summer concerts at Lewisohn Stadium at the City College of New York (1940–41), led New York Philharmonic concerts in 1943–44, and also conducted at the San Francisco Opera. He became a US citizen in 1944, and was engaged as music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra from 1945 to 1952. Steinberg is best known for his long tenure as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra from 1952 to 1976. Steinberg's Pittsburgh appearances in January 1952 were so impressive, he was quickly engaged as music director and also signed to a recording contract with Capitol Records. Thereafter, Pittsburgh was the center of his activity although he held other important positions. From 1958 to 1960, he also conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra, but eventually resigned that post because the added workload led to medical problems with his conducting arm. Steinberg led the New York Philharmonic for twelve weeks while on sabbatical leave from Pittsburgh in 1964–65; this led to his engagement as the Philharmonic's principal guest conductor from 1966 to 1968. From 1969 to 1972, Steinberg was music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (with which he had achieved earlier success as guest conductor), while maintaining his Pittsburgh post. He toured Europe with the Boston Symphony in April 1971.

These additional engagements often led to rumors that Steinberg would leave Pittsburgh for a full-time position elsewhere. In 1968 though he declared, "We are too closely wed, the Pittsburgh Symphony and I, to contemplate any divorce." On another occasion, Steinberg said that conducting had become the profession of a traveling salesman. "A conductor has to stay put to educate an orchestra." However, by 1975, Steinberg was suffering from heart and circulatory ailments and he felt pressured to end his tenure and retired from his Pittsburgh post at the end of the 1975–76 season.

Steinberg guest-conducted most of the major US orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, and Philadelphia Orchestra. Abroad he conducted the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, RAI Orchestra of Rome, Orchestra of the Teatro di San Carlo, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (in their 1955 Beethoven cycle), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, and WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne. He also appeared at summer festivals in the US and Canada (Ambler Temple University Festival, Hollywood Bowl, Ojai, Ravinia, Robin Hood Dell, Saratoga, Tanglewood, and Vancouver) as well as in Europe (Salzburg, Lucerne, Montreux). Steinberg conducted at the Metropolitan Opera in several productions including Barber's Vanessa, Verdi's Aida, and Wagner's Die Walküre, during his sabbatical in 1964–65, and Wagner's Parsifal in 1974.

Steinberg died in New York City on May 16, 1978, having entered the hospital after conducting the New York Philharmonic in a concert on May 1 that featured violinist Isaac Stern.