About Steven
Steven began playing drums at age 10, after four years of studying piano. His percussion studies began at the Multnomah Arts Center in Portland, OR, where he now serves as a private teacher and class instructor.
During his high school years, Steven was selected to perform with the 2009 All-Northwest Jazz Ensemble, rose to the position of Principal Percussionist with the Metropolitan Youth Symphony Orchestra, was active with the Portland Youth Jazz Orchestra and won multiple state medals for his Orchestral Snare Drum performances while competing at the OSAA Solo and Ensemble Competition. He began to teach and take on his own music students in 2008 at age 17.
Upon graduating from high school Steven attended Lewis & Clark College to study western classical percussion under the instruction of Brett EE Paschal, and while there he also studied West African hand drums with the late Ghanaian master drummer Obo Addy, jazz performance under esteemed NW musician Dan Balmer, and pursued a variety of ethnic percussion performance techniques with additional local teaching artists. In 2010 he was selected to perform with the Northern/Northwestern Intercollegiate Band in Reno, Nevada. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Music in 2013.
Since graduating from college, Steven has toured the country performing, traveled to Taiwan to perform jazz at the Kaohsiung Lantern Festival, released a solo CD of original percussion music, recorded on a handful of albums as a musical collaborator, and started his own music teaching company. Today he continues to perform regularly with local musicians various styles and continues to teach a variety of percussion classes at the Multnomah Arts Center in SW Portland as well as other local community spaces.