Stephen Dembski has taught composition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the past twenty-five years. Although his early training was in the European concert-music tradition, he's often wandered -- recently, for example, to work as an improvising conductor of long-form modular works released mostly on "jazz" labels. Presenters ranging from solo performers to the United Nations have programmed his music throughout the world, and much of it can be heard on about a dozen commercial recordings, several devoted entirely to his work. That work has received substantial recognition, notably via three commission-fellowships from the NEA, the Premio Musicale Citta di Trieste, and the Lieberson Award of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

Alongside his extensive catalog of concert music, Dembski is these days also composing for sarod, and making music for an interactive virtual-reality installation. Describing his work, critics have invoked "the sensuous, ecstatic quality of late Romanticism" (the NYTimes), calling it "moving and beautiful" (Pacifica radio) and claiming for it "a pedigree reaching back to Ravel" (The Telegraph (London)), while his CD-length composition for improvising musicians was touted as "an exquisite piece of chamber jazz" (Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD).

Dembski's other activities in music include publishing and software design; his name can be found on the covers of several books, and from time to time at the head of articles -- usually on the work of other composers, or on compositional theory. A frequent juror for competitions held by a variety of arts-oriented groups, he continues to serve on the boards of directors of a wide spectrum of not-for-profit music service organizations and foundations, both regional and national. While still tending to many smaller projects, he's currently working on an operatic setting of a libretto entitled Crow Soup, written for him by the renowned surrealist artist and novelist Leonora Carrington.