Stephen

With a mission is to advance a collective of multi-generational musicians of color, Stephen Spottswood composes high-quality hip-hop music, R&B, and contemporary music. Spottswood strongly believes that to raise the low percentage of African-American representation in classical music, educators must provide their students with music that relates to their culture. Stephen Spottswood, native of Silver Spring, Maryland, moved to Columbus, Ohio to study music education at Capital University. He went on to start his solo career performing as a hip-hop and jazz violinist, while simultaneously working as a middle school orchestra teacher. Stephen has worked to inspire African-American classically trained musicians to incorporate contemporary genres in their performance. In January of 2020, he founded Columbus Cultural Orchestra whose mission is to advance a collective of multi-generational musicians of color by performing high-quality music.