Stephen James Taylor - Musician & Explorer : Trans-tonal Music - Transcendent Thinking
Stephen James Taylor has a unique musical identity. His style has often been called “Afro-futuristic) as it represents a blend of classical, rock, blues, gospel, world music, homemade instruments, and avante garde. His past projects include scoring Richard Tanne’s 2020 Amazon film Chemical Hearts, music for the Star Wars Cantina at Disneyland’s Galaxy’s Edge (2019) {the first microtonal music ever in rotation at Disneyland), the PBS documentary by Charles Burnett entitled Power To Heal (2018), Maya Angelou-And Still I Rise (2016), Richard Tanne’s theatrical release, Southside With You (2016), Tom Bradley: Bridging the Divide (2015), People Are The Sky, (2015), Marvel’s TV Series The Black Panther, music for theme parks such as Disney World and The Red Sea Astrarium, Universal's The Adventures of Brer Rabbit, Disney’s Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas (for which he won Best Original Score at the 2004 DVDX Awards), Teachers Pet, a Disney animated feature with wide theatrical release in 2003, and most of the films directed by Academy Award winner, Charles Burnett including To Sleep With Anger and the blues documentary, Warming By the Devil’s Fire produced by Martin Scorsese. He has composed scores for many of Robert Townsend’s films such as The Making of the Five Heartbeats (2017) Of Boys and Men (2008), Carmen, A HipHopera (2004) and Holiday Heart (2000). In 2001 he wrote underscore and produced some of the songs for Clark Johnson’s Boycott (HBO films) as well as his 2018 Netflix film, Juanita (2017). In 1996 he was commissioned to write an orchestral suite for the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics and was one of the conductors of the Atlanta Symphony for that occasion. In 1993, Stephen received an Emmy nomination for an R&B song he wrote for I’ll Fly Away as well as a Daytime Emmy nomination for his classical orchestral score for an episode of the animated series, The Lion King’s Timon and Pumbaa. Other Emmy nominations have been for the PBS movie Brother Future (1991), and Raw Toonage an animated series for Disney. In 1999 and 2000 he has received Annie nominations for his work on Disney’s Mickey Mouseworks. He has also done string arrangements for James Taylor and for Crosby, Stills, and Nash. He is currently working on a cartoon series for Netflix.
After graduating from Stanford University in 1976 with a B.A. in music, he studied composition for four years with Henri Lazarof, professor of music at UCLA. He studied microtonality with Erv Wilson for 20 years with whom he helped develop a new 810 key microtonal keyboard used in many of the above scores.
Taylor’s second chamber symphony was commissioned and premiered by the Pasadena Chamber Orchestra in 1983. The Detroit Symphony later performed it in 1990. His various chamber works have been performed throughout the country. He has done a great deal of composing in surround sound. His 2001 “COME ALIVE” premiered at the El Paso Microhoot and has been presented many times since. More recently his 55 minute surround suite, “MUSIC FROM THE OTHER WAKANDA”, was selected by the composition faculty at Virgina Tech to be presented as part of its 2022 Afrofuturist themed “Cubefest”. Other projects include a trans-tonal pop album entitled Embrace It All (now available on itunes). A filmmaker as well, he has also completed some short films of his own: the award winning documentary, SURFING THE SONIC SKY, the science fiction short, I AM HERE. as well a research documentary about the micro- geometry of subatomic matter with co-director Jesus Trevino called “Gurule Shells, A Quantum Metaphor”.
A few samples:
"Red Sun Blue Highway" (fretless acoustic blues guitar} https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgBIf...
“The Bradley Variations” (31 tone guitar solo)
