Biography

Born in Northampton in 1985, Steven read composition at the Royal Northern College of Music with David Horne, graduating in 2007 with first-class honours. Awarded a scholarship to the Masters course at the Royal College of Music, he studied with Jonathan Cole and Mark-Anthony Turnage, graduating with distinction in 2009. 

He is currently a doctoral student at the RCM under Jonathan Cole, generously funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Steven attended the Britten-Pears Contemporary Course in Aldeburgh, studying with Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews and Magnus Lindberg. He also received the prestigious Mendelssohn Scholarship in 2008, allowing him to study in Europe with Brian Ferneyhough, Wolfgang Rihm and Enno Poppe, among others, at the Darmstadt Ferienkurse; and with Beat Furrer, Brice Pauset, Vladimir Tarnopolski in Graz. Steven’s work has been performed by the Arditti Quartet, the Danel Quartet, the BBC Singers, London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Contemporary Orchestra, Klangforum Wien, and the Moscow Studio for New Music; he has appeared on television and radio in the UK (BBC) and Russia (Culture TV), featured at the 2008 Aldeburgh Festival and will soon appear as part of the Philharmonia Orchestra's Music of Today Festival in 2011. He was a winner of the Fifth Jurgenson Competition for New Music at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, and was awarded the 2010 Royal Philharmonic Society's Young Composers Prize. 

Recent projects have included a work for violinist Ashot Sarkissjan entitled Face of Blades, performed in Darmstadt in July 2010 an ongoing cycle of instrumental and vocal works under the umbrella of Elusive Tangibility, and a long-term opera project entitled The Othniel Machine.