Stephen Taylor (1950) began his musical career at the age of ten as a chorister at Bristol Cathedral (UK). On leaving school he ventured to the Netherlands in 1969 for organ lessons with Ewald Kooiman, to whom he returned intermittently while reading music at Oxford, where he was Organ Scholar of Jesus College and was tutored by John Caldwell, James Dalton and Frank Ll. Harrison. He continued his organ studies in the Netherlands, where, taught by Nico van der Hooven and Jan Welmers at the Utrecht Conservatory, he won the Sweelinck Prize of Amsterdam (1975) and was awarded the Prix d'Excellence (1978).
For more than twenty years Stephen Taylor was organist of the Nicolaïkerk in Utrecht, where he organised many out-of-the-box concerts with and without organ. In 2006 he was awarded the St Martin Medal for his services to the cultural life of the city. As chairman of the artistic council of the International Haarlem Organ Festival he was closely involved in the festival editions of 2010, '12 and '14, and the publication in 2014 of the 50th anniversary volume The Haarlem Essays.
Stephen Taylor has been active as a musician, teacher, author and translator. He has given recitals in many parts of Europe and has played continuo with prominent Dutch and Flemish early music groups. His publications in English and Dutch include studies of twentieth-century organ building, organ music and performance. His translations from Dutch and German on music and cultural history have appeared in leading journals and have been issued by prominent publishing houses.