Stefan Schreiber was born in Kulmbach, Franken, Germany, in 1970. He began piano lessons at the age of eight, and violin at ten. From 1986, he studied with Walter Forchert, concertmaster of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. He has won several prizes in competitions for young talent in Jugend musiziert, and received the Friedrich Baur Music Prize from the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in 1990.

Between 1990 and 1996, Stefan Schreiber studied violin with Kurt Guntner and chamber music with Eckart Besch at the Munich Academy of Music and Theatre, from where he graduated in both specialties. He played in a string quartet in 1990 and a piano trio between 1992 and 1996. He also attended advanced violin courses with Olga Voitava and Roland Baldini, and chamber music with Norbert Braining, Reinhold Buhl and Bruno Canino, amongst others.

Stefan Schreiber played in a number of renowned youth orchestras, such as the Orchesterakademie Ingoldstadt and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, and was a member of the Amati Ensemble in Munich. He lived in Granada, Spain, in 1997 and 1998, where he played in the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada. He joined the Gulbenkian Orchestra in 1998.