Stephen Gorbos composes concert music for a range of ensembles and soloists, as well as music for film, theatre, and dance.  His music navigates a wide palette of genres and influences, creating a unique synthesis between styles as diverse as American rhythm & blues, western classical music, and Javanese gamelan. Working with electronic elements – mostly in the realm of sampling and processing – has played an increasingly meaningful role in Stephen's creative process. Whether composing for traditional ensembles, electronic media, or a mixture of both, the goal of this process is to create a music that is expressive, spontaneous, and flexible.

An emerging voice in American music, Stephen has had his works performed in concert halls across the US and in Europe by organizations such as the Minnesota Orchestra, the Fireworks Ensemble, the New England Philharmonic, and the Cuarteto Latinamericano. Stephen has received recognition and support from ASCAP (2005 Morton Gould Award), Meet the Composer (2007 Creative Connections Grant), and the American Music Center (2006 Composer Assistance Project Grant). In 2008, Stephen was awarded a Subito Grant from the Amercian Composers Forum, and, as a recipient of the Aaron Copland Award, was composer-in-residence at Copland House. Stephen has also been a fellow at both the Tanglewood Music Center (2006) and the Aspen Music Festival's composition masterclass (2002), and his music has been featured at Ostrava Music Days (2007), the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium (2005), the Chamber Music Academy and Composers Forum of the East (2005), the Bowdoin summer music festival (2004), and the Joventuts Musicals festival in Torroella de Montgri, Spain (2000). After completing a BFA in music composition at Carnegie Mellon University (2001), Stephen went on to the Yale School of Music, where he completed an MM (2003). In the spring of 2008, Stephen completed a DMA at Cornell University; his dissertation, an analysis of Ingram Marshall’s Dark Waters, focuses on authorial presence in sample-based music.

In addition to his activities as a composer, Stephen also teaches composition, theory, music technology, and music history, having served as a visiting instructor at the College of the Holy Cross during the 2007/2008 academic year and, since the fall of 2008, as assistant professor of composition and theory at the Catholic University of America in the Benjamin T Rome School of Music. 

Originally from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Stephen currently lives and works in Washington, DC.

For a pdf biography, click here.  A pdf of a recent CV can be found here.