Erika Morini was an Austrian and American violinist. She was born in Vienna in 1904 to Oscar Morini, originally from Trieste, and Malka Weissman, a piano teacher. Her parents had met in Chernivtsi before moving to Vienna, where they opened a music school in Leopoldstadt.
Morini received her first music lessons from her father, a pupil of Jakob Grun and Joseph Joachim. She later studied with Otakar Sevcik at the Vienna Music Academy and also took lessons from Rosa Hochmann-Rosenfeld. As a young girl, she performed for Emperor Franz Joseph. Her siblings also pursued artistic professions: Alice became a pianist, Stella a violinist, Heidi a dancer, Frank an art dealer, and Albert a concert agent.
She began giving concerts in Vienna in 1916. In 1918 she performed with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and in 1919 she appeared with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Arthur Nikisch. Her United States debut took place at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1921, with Arthur Bodanzky.
In 1932, Morini married the jeweler Felice Siracusano of Messina. The couple had no children. She moved to New York in 1938 and continued her concert career there, while also teaching violin at a private music school. She became a United States citizen in 1943 and returned to Vienna in 1949 for her first concert there in twelve years.
Morini received honorary doctorates from Smith College in Massachusetts in 1955 and from the New England Conservatory in Boston in 1963. She ended her concert activity in 1976.
In October 1995, shortly before her death, Morini's Stradivarius violin, along with paintings, personal letters, and recordings, was stolen from her Fifth Avenue apartment in Manhattan. The instrument was estimated to be worth more than three million dollars, and the theft remained unsolved. Morini died in Manhattan on November 1, 1995, aged 91; she did not learn of the robbery. Under her will, the violin was to be sold at auction and the proceeds given to Jewish charitable organizations.