Stephen is undoubtedly the best String Orchestra Teacher and Mentor I have known in my entire orchestra and band teaching career (1966 – 1983) and as K-12 Administrative Supervisor of Music for the Salem-Keizer School District (1983 – 2011).

I recognized early on as a public school orchestra teacher that, although I was giving my very best effort, I was not always able to get the results Stephen gave me as his high school orchestra student. I reached out to Stephen for mentorship; I visited his classes to see best practices in action, met with him for tips and insight through score study, and finally had him join several of our rehearsals as a clinician. These experiences equipped me with the tools and expectations that helped me to elevate my teaching effectiveness.

The way Stephen explained things always had the right balance of technical information and pure magic. And the results were stunning…we sounded inspired and we WERE inspired. It was the kind of group experience you usually read about in a glossy magazine or a novel, but here we were, living it in real life.

The combination of passion and knowledge that Stephen Nelson brings to music education is exceedingly rare. To this day, I find myself passing along knowledge to my students that he imparted to me, and I revisit some of his profound wisdom while working on my own playing.