Professor Allen initiated and co-designed a new BA in Music Production at 91做厙. Allens work primarily focuses on the historical, analytical and social contexts of popular music. The balance of our curriculum is unique to the North Eastern region of North America and has radically redefined the music department, now housed in Media Arts, at 91做厙. Some of Allens Rider students have become directors of film festivals, have professionally recorded and undertaken national tours, also working within other areas of the music industry.
Prof. Allen is completely dedicated to his studentswhatever field of excellence that may be in. His dedication is not only committed to those students while at Rider, but also beyond, into their continuing lives and careers. Prof. Allens students graduate with skills and insights they simply cannot obtain elsewhere in the same, unique, combination. In 2014 Prof. Allen was awarded the AAUP Bertram Mott Award In recognition of your commitment to and outstanding achievement toward advancing the goals of Higher Education.
Prof. Allen teaching has embraced courses on The Music of the Beatles (also online), The Music of Radiohead, Unpacking Bruce Springsteen, A History of Pop and Rock Music (parts I in the Fall and II in the Spring), Music History Survey (Classical to Post-Modern), Music and Society (Music Introduction), World Music, Beethoven and the Romantic Age, Great Composers, Musical Masterworks, The Arts in Contemporary Civilization, The Film Music of Stanley Kubrick and The Operas of Benjamin Britten. He has also presented at International Symposia on both Springsteen and the Beatles (White Album) in addition to his many Classical music presentations. He has published two articles on Springsteen in the journal American Musical Perspectives.
Professor Allen began his musical career by gaining performing and teaching diplomas (from the age of 16) in brass instrument playing and by winning national awards and television appearances as a euphonium soloist. He founded and conducted his first brass bandHorley Youth Brass Bandat the age of 15. In 1979 he won the UK National Solo Champion award in the Open Section followed by a Scholarship from the Royal Academy of Music awarded by Eric Ball O.B.E. and Geoffrey Brand. He graduated from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire with the highest B.A. (Academic with Honors) degree in that institution's then 100-year history.
Professor Allens PhD (D.Phil., Oxon) is from Oxford University, and he is a recognized world authority on the music of Benjamin Britten. Prof. Allen has taught at The Queens College, Oxford University (on the Oxford University List of Recognized Tutors), Princeton University, Rutgers University, Rowan University, SUNY (Fredonia) and the Britten-Pears School of Advanced Music Studies. Notably he has contributed seminal chapters in The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten, ed. Mervyn Cooke (hardcopy 1999, online 2011, Cambridge University Press) and Rethinking Britten, ed. Philip Rupprecht (2013, Oxford University Press). He has also published substantial and penetrating insights into Brittens music in a variety of journals including The International Journal of the Humanities and The Journal of Musicological Research and The Brass Herald. Prof. Allens work on Britten has been recently cited in over eight major books.
Prof. Allen was sought out by the preeminent journal The Musical Times to produce a series of articles re-contextualizing the classics of the brass band repertoire. His article on both Gustav and Imogen Holst - hailed as "ground-breaking" by senior figures in the brass band press - was published in the Fall of 2017 followed by Elgar (Spring of 2019); Vaughan Williams (Spring 2020); Michael Tippett (2021) Eric Ball (in three chapters: Winter 2021 to Summer 2022); Arthur Bliss (Summer, 2023); Herbert Howells (Spring, 2024); Edmund Rubba (Fall, 2024) and John Ireland and Helen Perkin (Winter, 2025). Allen has been recognized as "of the best - if not THE best - scholars currently researching and writing in this field of study" by the Times itself.
In total 26 chapters have now been collected together into a single e-book THE BRASS BAND 'GOLDEN ERA' (1927-62) published in 2026. (This e-book can be sent on request by contacting Professor Allen at sallen@rider.edu.)
Prof. Allens formative musicological training was shaped by Brian Timms (Surrey); Alan Jeffris (Cambridgeshire); Anthony Cross (Birmingham Conservatoire); Dr. Donald Mitchell (Aldeburgh, Suffolk) and Hans Keller (Dartington, Devon). After studying composition with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Dr. Robert Simpson and conducting with Sir Simon Rattle (and Rattles teachers, George Hurst and John Carewe), Prof. Allen went on to conduct his compositions in London (Royal Albert Hall), Los Angeles (Shrine Auditorium and Rose Bowl), Boston (Boston Gardens) and Australia (the Sydney Opera House). whose music appears on YouTube.
Prof. Allen founded the national award-winning in 2004, of which he was Musical Director until 2020. In 2010 the Princeton Brass Band was recognized as Ensemble-in-Residence at 91做厙. The band has performed around the USA (Ohio, Kentucky, North Carolina, Michigan and Indiana). In 2013 they were crowned National Champions at the North American Brass Band Championships (NABBA) under Allens artistic leadership. In 2014 Allen directed the Princeton Brass Band in a series of concerts as a headline guest artist at the world famous Great American Brass Band Festival in Danville, KY, performing in front of an audience of over 10,000 people. In 2015 Allen co-founded the Princeton Youth Brass Band. (Steves work with the band during his tenure are archived and available on YouTube.)
Professor Allen was a two-term President of the North American Brass Band Association (2011-14), and it has been recognized internationally that his work has transformed the brass band scene in North America and the way it is perceived around the world. Prof. From 2011 he was also invited to become the Professional Musical Director of the Lancaster British Brass Band in Pennsylvania in from 2011-21 where they gave a regular Spring and Summer series of concerts to audiences of often over 500 people. During this same period Steve was guest artist at the University of Montreal and was musical director of the Griffon Brass Band in a concert at the Cathedral in Montreal. In 2016 Prof. Allen was Guest Artist at the Northwest Brass Band Festival in Seattle.
During the pandemic years Prof. Allen recorded a digital video with a team of international brass playing superstars. Called the Brass Band Collection, their first video2.5 years in the makingwas released on YouTube in 2023 featured the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams garnering thousands of views in just a few short weeks. This is the first time that a major work has ever been completed virtually by digital means in such a fashion.
Prof. Allen has recorded as a brass artist and has performed around the world. From 2008 to 2015 Allen was a Visiting Professor at Mason Gross School of the Arts where he was Professor of Euphonium and founded the Rutgers University Brass Band (2011-13, see also on YouTube). In 2010 Allen was the soloist in the World Premiere of the Euphonium Concerto by Gareth Woodhis major analytical article on the Concerto being published in the ITEA Journal. He also wrote the introductory analysis for the published score of the Karl Jenkins Euphonium Concerto. In 2011 he was Guest Artist at NERTEC at Montclair University, NJ, where he gave the World Premiere of the Symphonic Rhapsody for Euphonium and Piano by Edward Gregson. In 2014 and 2015 Allen gave Masterclasses at universities in Pennsylvania and Montreal, Canada, where he also lectured on brass band repertoire. In 2014 and 2015 Allen was invited to be both Academic Advisor and Principal Euphonium of the North American Brass Band Summer School (NAbbSS) in Nova Scotia, Canada. In addition to lecturing on the brass band repertoire, Allen performed in both bands and chamber ensembles before audiences of over 6,000 people for nine consecutive nights at the Royal International Tattoo. Prof. Allen had the distinction of recording the euphonium CD examples to Scott Whitener's seminal pedagogical opus A Complete Guide to Brass: Instruments and Technique, 3rd ed. (Schirmer, 2007).
Links
The Brass Band Collection conducted ny Prof. Stephen Arthur Allen (2024)
(National Champions Winning Performance NABBA 2013)
The Princeton Brass Band conducted by Prof. Stephen Arthur Allen
The Princeton Brass Band conducted by Prof. Stephen Arthur Allen (2016)
(World Premiere) with Prof. Stephen Arthur Allen as soloist
commissioned by Oxford University
(Thomas Doss) in London