About This Site
This website is an all-volunteer effort by the conductor, members, and alumni of the UCI Symphony Orchestra. If you are currently a part of our organization and wish to help out (either by typing in program information, taking new photographs, etc.) please contact our conductor at stucker@uci.edu or Kevin Wiseman at kwiseman@uci.edu.
About the Conductor
Stephen Earl Tucker began his early musical training in Kingston, Jamaica. While showing great promise as a student of piano at the Jamaica School of Music, he also exhibited a keen aptitude for conducting. This resulted in frequent opportunities to conduct various choirs and instrumental ensembles. After immigrating to the United States, 
he continued piano studies with Dr. Kaestner Robertson and furthered his training as a conductor, in New York, under the guidance of Tally Makell, and with Toshimasa F. Wada in Massachussets.
As a participant in the Fifteenth International Conductor's Institute in Southern California, Tucker met and worked with Maestro Jon Robertson, music director and conductor of the Redlands Symphony. Subsequently, Tucker earned the position of assistant conductor of the Thayer Symphony in Massachusetts.
Upon moving to the West Coast, Tucker accepted the position of visiting orchestral conductor at the University of California at Riverside (UCR) in 1992. Later that year, having been chosen as one of six international candidates from a group of forty-eight applicants, Tucker seized the opportunity to study under Julius Kalmar and Yuiji Yuasa in the Wiener Meisterkurse at the Vienna Conservatory in Austria. He holds diplomas in conducting from the Vienna Conservatory and the International Institute of Symphonic Conducting where he studied under Maestro Herbert Blomstedt, former music director of the San Francisco Symphony and the Dresden Staatskapelle.
Since 1992 he has twice traveled to Slovakia (formerly Czechoslovakia) to rehearse and record with the Slovak Radio Symphony in their Bratislava concert hall.
In the summer of 1997 Tucker was a Fellow in the Conductors' Institute at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, Connecticut, working with Harold Farberman, Daniel Lewis, Christopher Wilkins, and Steven Zike.
Tucker has arranged, produced, and conducted on 13 recordings. These include two CDs with the Paradigm Vocal Ensemble (Texas), four recordings with the Hungarian National Philharmonic and Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava, Slovakia), 
and two with the Jackson Family singers (Command Records, A & M Records). Other recording credits include his composition, Locked In, written for the Sundance Film Festival and orchestrator for Willie Nelson on Willie Nelson Classics.
He has served as guest conductor or cover conductor for the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Long Beach Symphony, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. He was music director/conductor of the Neumark Ensemble and Chorale, a professional orchestra and chorus (1993-98). Most recently, he served as principal conductor for the Atlantic Union College Symphony Orchestra (2003-2004), Massachusetts, and conductor in Beethoven's Choral Fantasy and Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand, at Avery Fisher Hall, New York.
Known nationally for his work with youth orchestras, Tucker has conducted youth orchestras in Massachusetts, Maine, Florida, and Utah. In addition, he has conducted the Southern California Young Artists Symphony, the Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra, SCSBOA's "All Southern Orchestra," the Long Beach (Calif.) "All City Honor Orchestra," and since 1999, he trains the festival orchestras at Arrowbear Music Camp (summers).
In the fall of 1998 Tucker entered the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as a graduate conducting student, pursuing the Doctor of Musical Arts Degree (D.M.A.) in Orchestral Conducting. While at UCLA, Tucker served as music director of the Musical Theater Workshop under John Hall, and as assistant conductor of Opera UCLA under Maestro William Vendice.
After completing all course work and examinations, Tucker was invited to serve on the faculty of the University of California, Irvine, where he presently holds the position of assistant professor in music, teaching conducting, orchestration, graduate analysis and is also head of orchestral studies, conducting the University Orchestra.
His dissertation: "Edward Kennedy 'Duke' Ellington's Ballet, The River, a Conductor's Approach to the Preparation and Performance of the Score," discusses some problems encountered in that work, along with suggestions for a clear and stylistically informed presentation.
He makes frequent guest appearances with international musical organizations in opera, concerts, and recording projects.
Tucker holds a D.M.A. in Conducting from UCLA.
