Samuel was an Armenian hosiery manufacturer and musician from Diyarbakir, Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey, who had been imprisoned by the Turkish authorities in the 1890s as a political activist, and who thereafter relocated to Manchester, England.

[3] When only 16 years old, she was invited by Sir Henry Wood to play at the Promenade season at the Queens Hall, Manchester.

The other founding members were Marjorie Lavers (violin II), Winifred Copperwheat (1905–76, viola) and Norina Semino (cello).

When the re-formed Zorian String Quartet diminished its activity, she led the English Opera Group Orchestra 1952–57, including performances at the Aldeburgh Festival.

In 1985, her former husband John Amis wrote, in his autobiography Amiscellany:Olive's own playing was not virtuosic, though she could most capably negotiate things like Mozart concertos, the first fiddle-parts of Britten, Bartók and Tippett, as well as Stravinsky's Duo Concertant.

[15] For many years Zorian played on a 1721 Gagliano violin, which upon her death was bequeathed to the daughter of Athur Catheral, her former tutor, to whom it originally belonged.

Two memorial concerts in November 1966 (the first in London on the 23rd, featuring Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears, Julian Bream, Helen Watts, Manoug Parikian, Norman Del Mar and Harold Lester;[16] the second in Manchester, featuring John Ogdon and his wife Brenda Lucas, Elizabeth Harwood, Rodney Friend and Isobel Flinn) raised more than the necessary amount.