The arts have been a life-long passion for Stephen Crosby but his career took him in a different direction. A native of Chicago, he was educated in the US, England and France in music and business and holds a Bachelor of Science degree and double Masters degrees from the Juilliard School and from Columbia University in New York City. His vocation has been in financial services international risk management, most recently as Managing Director and Chief Risk Officer for the global investment management businesses of the Deutsche Bank, headquartered in London. But his a-vocational pursuits in the arts as pianist, composer, chorister, arts producer, board director, consultant and philanthropist have kept him involved as performer, adviser, strategic planner, fundraiser and tireless champion for the arts and their critical role in the education of our children and in the quality of our lives, individually and as communities.

His teaching and speaking career began while in the Navy, training musicians for Navy, Army and Marine Corps installations around the world, then continued on the business side in corporate and conference venues in the United States and Europe. In the recent past he has been a featured speaker at the National Society of Arts & Letters, the Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts, New York Chautauqua Institution, the Celebrity Cruiselines, The Arizona School for the Arts, Arizona State University OLLI Lecture Series and other venues on music, dance and religious topics. His commitment to educating on interfaith issues was the result of his experience consulting on the creation of the Trinity Foundation for Christianity and Culture in London (now called the Awareness Foundation), and subsequently attending an international interfaith conference in London as a Chautauqua Institution delegate.

It was his marriage to Bonnie Stein Parkes which sparked his interest and education in dance because of her international career as ballet, jazz and modern dancer, choreographer and film producer. Thus, exploring the collaboration of musicians, composers, dancers and choreographers became the genesis of a series of successful music and dance lectures.

Crosby’s compositions have ranged through symphony, chamber music, concerto, solo voice, piano and choral genres, while in recent years he has focused on choral literature for the church.