At the age of 5, Stephen had two passions; baseball & the desire to play drums. Stephen’s mom, Anna Peppos, decided to purchase him a spinet piano instead of the drum set he really wanted, and today, Stephen is grateful to his mom for that decision! By age 6, he learned to play every note of Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Ball’s of Fire” and his passion for music grew.
As a child, watching the Beatles perform on the Ed Sullivan TV Show inspired Stephen to make music his life’s ambition. Jazz music and recording fascinated him in his teen years, and he set up a 4-track recording studio in his parent’s garage where he wrote and recorded original music. He frequented jazz clubs in Norfolk, VA to hear his local piano hero, Joe Jones, perform.
Stephen has paid his dues playing guitar & keyboards in popular cover bands in the Va. Beach, VA resort area and in other east-coast clubs.
Stephen has produced over 2000 tracks for his original music libraries, composed national TV jingles, and worked with some of the best music library companies in the world. Television credits include CSI Miami, America’s Most Wanted, True Hollywood Story, NBC Nightly News, E ! News Live, Celebrity Apprentice, Meet The Press, The Today Show, 7th Heaven, Superbook, The 700 Club and MTV just to name a few. He has released five full length contemporary instrumental albums plus a "Holiday" EP (Christmas Nights). In 2008, Stephen’s debut album Vertigo debuted at #3 on the World New Age Top 100 Chart and his next release, Follow The Mist was a 1st round GRAMMY ballot choice for Best New Age Album in 2009. His music has garnished him 6 Telly & Rim Awards. And he received "Best Instrumental Album-Piano" award from Lifestyle Music Awards for his Follow The Mist Album.
As a Sound Designer, Stephen's projects have been wide and varied. Starting in 1990 with his highly successful TECHSONICS PRODUCTION LIBRARIES that features 1000's of specialized sounds he created are now heard on worldwide radio today. In addition he's composed original music and created sound design for many professional and educational regional plays; including Macbeth, The Diviners, Big River, The 3 Musketeers, Glass Menagerie, As It Is In Heaven, Fiddler On The Roof and many others. He also handled the Live Sound Mixing for Theatre with up to 32 live actor mics plus another 15 live orchestra mics for musicals. Stephen comments "as the sound designer I like to drill down on the design and see how sound can make the show more revealing and exciting to the theatre goer."
- Michael Debbage - Mainly Piano Review
- Michael Diamond Music & Media Focus