
Dr. Steve Vaughn, a native of upstate New York, is a freelance musician across the front range of Colorado and is currently Adjunct Professor of Euphonium at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, CO. Equally at home performing on both tuba and euphonium, Steve holds the position of Solo Euphonium with Colorado Brass and Principal Tuba with the Fort Collins Symphony.
Steve received his undergraduate degree in Music Education and Euphonium Performance from Ithaca College (Ithaca, NY), where he studied with Dr. Aaron Tindall. He has a Master of Music degree in Euphonium Performance from the University of Colorado Boulder (Boulder, CO) studying with Michael Dunn where he also completed a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Tuba Performance and Pedagogy.
Steve has been principal tubist with the Fort Collins Symphony since 2017 and has performed with numerous orchestras across Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico including the Colorado Symphony, Boulder Philharmonic, Colorado Springs Philharmonic, National Repertory Orchestra, Wyoming Symphony, Cheyenne Symphony, San Juan Symphony, and others. While at CU-Boulder he played in the graduate brass quintet which was one of 4 international ensembles accepted into the inaugural American Brass Quintet Seminar at the Aspen Music Festival in 2018.
As a euphoniumist, Steve currently plays with Colorado Brass, a championship-level brass band in Denver, Colorado while also teaching the euphonium students at the University of Northern Colorado. Steve recently performed Blind Spot by Swiss composer Gilles Rocha for the 2021 International Tuba and Euphonium Conference. He has performed with the chamber group Boulder Brass on numerous occasions and has performed orchestral works that include euphonium with many of the ensembles listed above. In 2015 Steve was the first euphonium player to win the Gordon T. Parks Concerto Competition and performed the Euphonium Concerto by Vladimir Cosma with the Arapahoe Philharmonic the following season.
Outside of music Steve enjoys homebrewing, coding, and spending time hiking with his wife Jessica and their pets.