Philipp von Steinaecker grew up in Hamburg. He studied cello with Harvey Shapiro at the Juilliard School in New York, baroque cello with Christophe Coin at the CNSM in Paris as well as conducting with Mark Stringer at the Musikhochschule in Vienna. He won a competition for the position of ‘young conductor’ with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and was the assistant of John Eliot Gardiner and Claudio Abbado.