Steven Mead is well known and respected by his high-profile work in brass performance and pedagogy. He is Professor at the Royal Northern College of Music, and teaches at several specialist schools across Europe, and in Japan. He was given the prestigious award of Fellow of the RNCM in 2008. He needs no introduction to brass enthusiasts around the world as his playing and teaching have become known to virtually all who have a love for the instrument known as the euphonium. This remarkable solo career followed on from the successes he achieved as a member of several of the UK’s leading brass bands. Nowadays he travels and performs regularly with some of the finest brass, wind and symphonic ensembles in the world.
He has played solo concerti with symphony orchestras in many countries of the world including Norway, Finland, Poland , USA, Canada, Italy, Japan, Lithuania and Germany. As a soloist he has played with most of the leading military bands in the world including Band of the Garde Republicaine (Paris, France) The Central Band of the RAF (London, UK) The Italian Police Band (Rome, Italy), The Dutch Marine Band (Rotterdam,Netherlands) The US Army Band (Washington DC, USA). He has also given concert tours with several leading professional chamber ensembles in Europe, including Sound-Inn-Brass (Austria), Spanish Brass Quintet, Classic Quintet (Bolzano,Italy),Trombonisti Italiani (Italy) and London Brass. His innovation is also evident with his premiere performances of new concerti and major works by Martin Ellerby, Philip Sparke, Torstein Aagaard Nilsen, Tadeusz Kassatti, John Reeman, Derek Bourgeois, Vladimir Cosma, Rolf Rudin, Thomas Dos, Howard Snell, Hermann Pallhuber, Stephen Roberts, to name but a few. To date he has given over 500 world premiere performances.
Steven has been described as one of the world’s most recorded solo brass artists with over 75 CDs to his credit. In addition, his strong contribution to education literature for the euphonium is unmatched, such as specialist publications by publishers such as DeHaske and Studio Music and Band Press. He is the owner of a music label, Bocchino Music which produces and distributes his albums. As an innovator for the whole low brass world in general, he has been the Artistic Director of all six of the National Tuba Euphonium Conferences, held in the UK. He was also the Artistic Director of the highly successful International Tuba Euphonium Conference (ITEC), held in Linz, Austria in June 2012. He was Artistic Director of the JIWEF, South Korea 2013-2019. As a designer and instrument consultant Steven has worked with Besson for over thirty years. and feels honoured to have an important role of Ambassador with Besson under the control of Buffet Crampon. His collaboration with the Denis Wick company has resulted is several lines of personalised products and accessories. His webstore www.euphoniumstore.net is very popular with brass enthusiasts. He has also been an adjudicator at some of the leading brass band, wind band and solo contests, including the British Open Brass Band Championships in 2007 and now spearheads a movement to introduce more criteria-based adjudication to brass band competitions Steven was presented with the 2021 ‘Mortimer Medal’ for his lifelong services and dedication to the Brass Band movement.
