Stephen Taberner
Stephen was born in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1961 where much of his early musical damage was inflicted in church. At 21, he took up the double bass and played in local jazz bands leading to a personality crisis and move to Sydney to study at the Conservatorium of Music in 1989.
He played with Bobby Gebert, Kate Swadling, Jann Rutherford, and various other Sydney jazz artists before his musical career took an unexpected turn when he joined world music singing group Voices from the Vacant Lot in 1991.
As well as traveling to festivals and learning songs from Bulgarians, Georgians, South Africans and Tanzanians, he discovered a love for teaching singing which led to the establishment of his first community choir in 1993.
In 1996 and 1998 Stephen was co-director of the Choral Sea, a singing event at Sydneys Town Hall with over 700 participants. Stephen also became a highly sought choir and workshop leader, facilitating workshops throughout Australasia.
He worked as musician for Sydney Playback Theatre from 1995 to 2000, and also with an East Timorese cultural group in Cabramatta over a similar period. These two experiences led to him composing the music for the NZ made documentary Punitive Damage, the soundtrack of which was nominated for a Nokia NZ film award in 1999.
In 2000, he began to write songs in earnest and anywhere else they came to him. He presented his debut concert This was nearly my life at Eastside Parish in 2001, and spent much of 2002 recording his first solo CD at BJB studios in Surry Hills.
Stephen lives in the Blue Mountains and continues to work with choirs, including the Spooky Mens Chorale and Another Roadside Attraction who have appeared twice on TV backing Paul McDermott and Mark Lizotte.
Home