Since his first performances at the Los Angeles Music Center in the early 1970’s, Stephen Piazza has been privileged to share the concert stage with some of the music world’s greatest artists. Placido Domingo, Dawn Upshaw, Leontyne Price, Itzhak Perlman, Leonard Bernstein, Zubin Mehta, and Esa-Pekka Salonen are among the dozens of musical luminaries with whom Piazza has appeared. In addition to hundreds of concerts with the L.A. Philharmonic at the Music Center and the Hollywood Bowl, he has also performed in such internationally acclaimed venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Paris’s Theatre du Chatelet, Mexico City’s Palacio des Belles Artes, Birmingham’s (U.K.) Sir Adrian Boult Hall, and Cologne’s Philharmonie.  In October 2003 he participated in the nationally televised opening concerts of Frank Gehry’s magnificent Los Angeles landmark, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and in August 2004 he conducted the Idyllwild Festival Wind Ensemble in the first wind band performance in Disney Hall. As a member of the Los Angeles Opera orchestra and Long Beach Symphony, he continues to perform with the current array of world-renowned conductors, singers and soloists. 1978 marked the year Piazza began performing with major motion picture, TV, and recording studio orchestras. His clarinet and bass clarinet playing can be heard on a wide variety of recordings including the soundtracks to “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “The Flintstones,” “Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas,” the symphonies and concertos of Lutoslawski and Prokofiev, as well as the most current CD’s by pop music icons Josh Groban and Barbra Streisand.

1978 was also the year Piazza accepted a faculty position at Los Angeles Pierce College. Five years later, as chair of the College’s music department, he began to reorganize the wind band program. With the newly-formed Los Angeles Pierce Symphonic Winds as the school’s premier performing group, he began to build a community–based ensemble that would eventually perform throughout the United States, Canada, Italy and the United Kingdom. In June 2004, the L.A. Winds were the featured American performers at the “Festival des Anches d’Azur” in scenic La Croix-Valmer in the south of France.   Plans are currently underway for the L.A. Winds to perform in Austria at the Mid European Band and Orchestra Festival.  In addition to his work as a guest conductor and clinician, Piazza has also served as assistant conductor of the San Fernando Valey Symphony, and recently he accepted the poition as conductor of the Kadima Consortium.  In February 2005 he was awarded a Citation of Merit from the California Band Director’s Association and in April, he was the recipient of the Chamber of Commerce’s “R.O.L.E.” - Recognizing Outstanding Leaders in Education” - award for his leadership in the field of education.

During the summers, Maestro Piazza conducts the prestigious Festival Wind Ensemble at the Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts.  As director of the festival’s wind program for nearly 20 years, he has helped Idyllwild Arts become one of America’s leading summer music programs and year-round arts academies.

Born in New York City in 1950, Piazza moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1957, and remained in California to earn both his bachelors and masters degrees from the University of Southern California.  After studies with such legendary artist/educators as Mitchell Lurie, Ingolf Dahl, and Frederic Fennell, he began his own teaching career - first at California Lutheran College and, two years later, at Los Angeles Pierce College.