Stephen has composed most all the scores for the films of legendary Academy Award winning director, Charles Burnett, as well as the musicals, comedies and dramatic films of Robert Townsend. In 2009 Academy Award nominated producer Reginald Hudlin tapped him to write the main title song and underscore for the limited animated series, The Black Panther. His body of work encompasses shows and films from all the major studios. The score to Richard Tanne's feature film, "Southside With You" , received rave reviews, and his classical orchestral works have been performed by the Atlanta Symphony (1996 Olympics Opening Ceremonies), the Detroit Symphony and the Cleveland Symphony. After receiving his music degree from Stanford he went on to study privately for several years with Henri Lazarof (composition professor at UCLA), Dr Albert Harris (conducting), and microtonal scale pioneer, Ervin Wilson.