Bio
Stephen Anthony Rawson is a pianist, composer, and educator currently based in Seattle, WA. He has performed throughout the United States as both a soloist and collaborator in a variety of contexts. Stephen has been as a guest artist at the Space City New Music Festival, Lone Star College, and the Northwest School in Seattle. He has also performed with different ensembles as part of the Oregon Composers Forum, and throughout Chicago.
As a composer, Stephen has written and arranged music for collegiate ensembles, theatrical productions, professionals, and students. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in music composition at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in 2015, where he studied with Dr. Chiayu Hsu. In 2020, he arranged, performed, and composed original music for the musical Out of My Dreams: A Revue at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He also wrote music for the Classical Actors Ensemble’s 2022 production of Shakespeare’s Othello in Minneapolis, MN.
Stephen attended the University of Oregon where he taught first-year aural skills and music theory as a Graduate Teaching Fellow, and an upper-level summer course on improvised music and analysis. While in Oregon, Stephen performed and composed new works in the Oregon Composers Forum, and directed the improvisation-based ensemble Sonos Domum. He also worked as Dr. Drew Nobile’s research assistant for his award-winning book Harmony as Form in Rock Music (Oxford, 2020)
In 2019, he began working with Grammy Award-winning artist Jennifer Hudson as her music assistant. Together, they prepared for her role as Aretha Franklin in the biopic Respect (2021), and collaborated on musical arrangements for Ms. Hudson’s performances. Stephen taught piano and composition at Access Contemporary Music and City Strings & Piano, and music directed the Musical Theater Ensemble at the Old Town School of Folk Music and at Friendship United Methodist Church in Bolingbrook, IL. He is an interviewer and album reviewer for the new music podcast Relevant Tones.
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