Stephen Stubbs, born in 1951 in Seattle (U. S.), has been engaged in music making since early childhood. Parallel interests in new and pre- romantic music led him to take a degree in composition at university and to study the lute and the harpsichord. Further years of study in Holland and England preceded his professional debut as lutenist in 1976 at the Wigmore Hall, London. Since 1980 he has lived in North Germany, where he is a professor of lute and performance practices at the Hochschule der Künste in Bremen.

With his direction of Stefano Landi’s La morte d’Orfeo at the 1987 Bruges Festival, Stephen Stubbs began his career as opera director and he simultaneously founded the ensemble Tragicomedia, which has since recorded over 20 CDs and completed tours of Europe, North America and Japan. He has been invited for opera productions in several European countries and Scandinavia, most recently directing Sartorio’s L’Orfeo at the Early Music Festival Utrecht 1998. To expand his repertoire into the late baroque period, Stubbs has founded the baroque orchestra Teatro Lirico.