Stephen is currently on the faculty of the Department of Music at Slippery Rock University, where he conducts the University Concert Choir and Women’s Choir, teaches music theory and conducting, and served for two-and-a-half years as the interim conductor of the Symphonic Wind Ensemble. Prior to this position, he served as an adjunct instructor at the University of South Florida and University of Tampa, and taught choral music for two years in the Florida public school system. He holds music degrees from Westminster College (BM), the University of South Florida (MM), and West Virginia University (DMA), where he was awarded a prestigious Swiger Doctoral Fellowship. He has studied conducting with Kathleen Shannon, Don Wilcox, and William Wiedrich, as well as eminent American choral conductors Robert Page and René Clausen.

Stephen’s experience ranges across a wide variety of ensembles, including large mixed choirs, chamber choirs, women’s choirs, orchestras and symphonic winds, music theater, and more. Recent performances of choral masterworks include Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Requiems by Fauré and Mozart, and Orff’s Carmina Burana. Recent theatrical productions as musical director and conductor include Suor Angelica, My Fair Lady, and Guys and Dolls. He has served as guest conductor for district and regional choir and band festivals throughout Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio.

The choirs at SRU regularly collaborate with local and regional performing groups to present a diverse array of choral concerts and perform major works of the choral repertoire. Highlights of these collaborations include residencies and gala concerts of works of American composers Libby Larsen and David Maslanka; a performance of Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem with guest artist Richard Elliott, principal organist of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir; and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with maestro Matthew Kraemer and the Butler County Symphony Orchestra. The choirs have performed regularly with both Butler and the Erie Chamber Orchestra since 2010. This year the choir begins a new collaboration with the Erie Philharmonic Orchestra, performing Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem under the baton of Daniel Meyer.

The choirs have performed at regional conferences and national venues, such as the Pennsylvania Music Educator’s Association (PMEA) Annual Conference in Hershey, PA, and at Carnegie Hall in New York City to participate in the world premiere of composer James Eakin’s Flowers Over the Graves of War with conductor Tim Seelig. Stephen is also the director of the Shenango Valley Chorale, a 100-voice auditioned volunteer chorus that serves the western Pennsylvania region near Youngstown, OH; and the co-founder and music director of the Pierce Theatre Players, a chamber orchestra created to offer high caliber programs of symphonic masterworks to the communities of the Shenango Valley of western Pennsylvania.