Ian Stephens’s music has been widely performed in the UK and further afield by ensembles including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band, Brodsky Quartet and the Choirs of King’s College, Cambridge, and Salisbury Cathedral, and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4. A CD of his chamber music with the Fitzwilliam Quartet is released on Divine Art in 2023.
Recent works include Pinocchio for Northern Ballet, Colston Falls for the National Youth Brass Band of Wales and Unruhige Träume for choir.
Highlights of previous years include his Clarinet Concerto (2019), Super Slow Way: A Rhapsody to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal (2016) with lyrics by Ian McMillan, and We’re Going on a Bear Hunt for narrator and orchestra (2009), performed at the 2013 BBC Proms.
Born in Sidmouth, Devon, Ian studied music at the University of Bristol and is based near Liverpool, where he takes a full part in the musical life of the city and the region as a composer, performer, lecturer and teacher. He is a mentor on the Rushworth Young Composers scheme, and a composition tutor at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester.