About Steve
Music Education
Music Teacher
Steve has played the piano for over 45 years, studying with various pianists including Julliard graduate, Dr. Donald Conflenti, Dr. James Stafford (jazz piano), Dr. Cleveland Page, and Richard Morris. In 1989, he received the B.A. in Piano Performance from East Tennessee State University, and later in 1997, completed an M.M. in Music Theory from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). While at the Conservatory, Steve also completed the coursework for the Ph.D. in Music Theory, engaging in considerable research involving analytical techniques in the music of Ravel, Bartok, and Stravinsky, and the confluence of early jazz styles and post-tonal works of Gershwin, Schulhoff, and Lambert.
He has also received training in organ, figured bass improvisation, jazz improvisation/theory/history, guitar, choral and instrumental conducting, and band and orchestral instruments with independent studies on trombone, trumpet, and violin. More recently, Steve finished the M.Ed. in Music Education from Xavier University and requirements for a K-12 Music Teaching Professional License with the Ohio Department of Education.
Steve Tedesco has been teaching music students of all ages since 1986. He began his teaching career at 18 years of age, growing a piano studio of over 30 students as an instructor at a local music store. As a Graduate Teaching Assistant at CCM, Steve taught graduate and undergraduate courses in ear training, music theory, and sight-singing for music theater majors; and thereafter taught private and class piano as an adjunct instructor at Southern Wesleyan University in Central, South Carolina. Through the years, Steve has also acquired over 15 years of experience teaching PreK-12 music in both private and public schools as both general music teacher and band director. He currently teaches 7th and 8th grade band at Clark Montessori and Shroder High Schools in the Cincinnati Public School district, and 5th-12th grade band at Liberty Bible Academy in Mason, Ohio.
Steve has also taught seminars as a guest clinician at worship conferences and professional teacher conferences on topics including Improvising from the Hymnbook, Using the Nashville Number System, Arranging Hymns for Publication, and Alternative Methods for Teaching Note Reading to Children.
Music Performer
Steve has a myriad of experience performing and teaching classical, jazz, southern gospel, contemporary worship, and church music. He has won several piano competition awards such as 1st Place in the Tennessee Association of Christian Schools State Piano Competition three years in a row, and 1st Place in the National Association of Christian Schools Piano Competition. He was also the recipient of the 1st Place award in the Floyd Cramer Performance Scholarship Competition at ETSU four years in a row. At the Cincinnati Conservatory, he was awarded a University Graduate Scholarship and Graduate Teaching Assistantship for four years running. Over the years he has performed works by Bach, Scarlatti, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Bartok, and accompanied many instrumentalists and vocalists for numerous auditions, competitions, and recitals.
As a jazz pianist, he has performed with jazz artists Jon Faddis, Earni Watts (formerly with the NBC Tonight Show Band), Lloyd Herbert, and Rick Simerly. He served as pianist for the ETSU Jazz Ensemble for three years, and leader of his own jazz groups, Quintessence and the Steve Tedesco Trio. While at the University of Cincinnati, he played with several jazz combos in the Jazz Studies program, and currently plays piano with a mainstream jazz group called Fourth Generation, and solo piano for weddings, receptions, private parties, and dinners.
As an arranger, Steve has arranged and performed many hymns and gospel songs over the years including projects involving the integration of his childhood love of ragtime music into the gospel music style. Several of these were published in two books of piano arrangements by the Hal Leonard Corporation; “Ragtime Gospel Hymns” (2008), and “Ragtime Gospel Classics” (2015). For more details on these two publications click on Steve’s Books.
Music Minister
Steve has also played piano for a number of southern gospel quartets, sharing the stage with groups such as Gold City, the Kingsmen, the Goodmans, the McKameys, the Hoppers, the Dixie Melody Boys, James Blackwood, Jake Hess, J.D. Sumner, and Hovie Lister, among others. In addition, Steve has worked as a studio pianist in both professional recording studios and as the co-owner of his own “Heritage Studios.” He has played piano on at least 15 recording projects of various Christian artists, and recorded a solo piano project entitled “Keys to Faith.”
As a church musician, Steve has served as the pianist, choir director, and minister of music for churches in South Carolina and Ohio, directing adult choirs, senior choirs, children’s and youth choirs and bands, and instructing and encouraging many solo instrumentalists and vocalists in using and developing their talents for the glory of God. He has directed at least 25 church and school musicals for adults, youth, and children’s choirs and drama teams for holiday (Christmas and Easter), patriotic and non-seasonal occasions. Steve has conducted many adult choir retreats and conferences either himself, or with guest artists such as Danny Wolfe and Mark Condon. He is a licensed minister in the Church of God denomination (Cleveland, Tenn.), and has appeared as guest pianist and speaker at various churches in Ohio, South Carolina, and Tennessee.