Steven James is a pianist and composer from Eugene, Oregon, where he pursues a wide variety of musical activities, both locally and abroad. As a pianist, he has performed publicly as a soloist in venues on the west coast, including the University of Oregon’s Beall Concert Hall in Eugene and Lincoln Hall in Portland, as well as presenting chamber music and new music concerts with organizations like Impulse Ensemble and Cascadia Composers, where he serves as a board member. In June 2024, he graduated from the U of O with a master’s degree in Piano Performance, giving a recital that included performances of classical works, his own music, and free improvisation. His piano teachers have included Alexandre Dossin and David Riley, and in composition have included David Crumb, Zae Munn, and David Liptak.

As a composer, Steven has received commissions and performances from local and national performers, including the University of Oregon piano studio, Los Tres Musicos, and The Bridge Collective in San Francisco. Steven’s composition style seeks to bring together a sense of enthusiastic adventure and exploration with an engagement with the nuances and depth of the internal human experience, often creating narratives and dramatic effects to explore deep emotions, using either natural or fantastical backdrops as the ‘setting’ for his music. Trained as a writer and poet in addition to his musical activities, Steven wishes to ‘cross the streams’ between literature and music, often comparing literary elements like plot, characterization, setting, dialogue, and stylistic diction to classical musical elements like form, harmony, timbre, counterpoint, and rhythm.

In addition to performance and composition, Steven teaches private piano and composition lessons with the Pavilanis School of Music in downtown Eugene, where he coaches students between the ages of 6 and 66 in the enjoyment and growth of making music. His pedagogical method involves a blend of improvisation and imagination, practice of fundamental technical and musical skills, and integration of music theory into every concept as a means of building interpretation and understanding. Recently, he has taken on the organization of a concerts in Portland and Eugene, Oregon entitled “In Good Hands” - a collaboration between members of Cascadia Composers and local piano students to premiere new works written with student musicians in mind. These concerts will take place in August 2025, and will include some of Steven’s own music, as well as that of many other local composers.

When not pursuing these artistic activities, Steven enjoys exploring nature, writing poems and fantasy, and running a homebrew D&D campaign. All three of these hobbies serve to provide inspiration for his musical composition