December 20, 2004
“Career in music wasn’t unexpected”
by Brian Scheid
Burlington County Times, Burlington, NJ
Edgewater, Park – At the age of 23, township resident Stephen Tirpak has already performed on platinum-selling albums. He has composed symphony arrangements, and he has headlined at music clubs up and down the East Coast.
Tirpak claims his life in music began before he was even born.
“When I was in the womb, my mom put headphones on her stomach, “ Tirpak said with a laugh last week. “ This (career in music) was something in the making for a long, long time.”
In fact, a career in music was certainly not unexpected in Tirpak’s household, where piles of sheet music and composition books were frequent guests at the family dinner table.
Tirpak’s parents, Gene and Barbara Tirpak of Edgewater Park, are both professional keyboard players who run their own music studio and teach music lessons.
Tirpak’s 20-year-old sister, Cheryl, is working toward her degree in oboe performance at Rowan University.
However, Tirpak said his musical abilities were not as much natural as they were the result of hard work and years of study. There were times when he practiced six hours a night, he said.
“When I was in college, I didn’t do anything but practice and write music,” Tirpak said. “ Well, maybe a party at night or something, but that was pretty rare.”
Tirpak started playing the violin when he was 5 years old, but took up the trumpet at age 10 because Ridgeway Middle School in Edgewater Park had only a concert band.
He attended the High School for the Performing Arts on South Broad Street in Philadelphia where he quickly found a new passion for writing music. During his sophomore year, a music teacher encouraged him to enter a symphony composition competition Temple University was holding for high school students in the tri-state region.
Although he said he knew nothing about composing when he started, Tirpak won the competition in both his sophomore and junior years.
Tirpak graduated from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia last spring, but his career in music has already taken off, he said.
Tirpak has played trumpet and written horn and string arrangements for R&B performers R. Kelly, Vivian Green and Boyz II Men, up-and-coming rap group Young Gunz and a number of gospel groups. He plays Latin music with a band in Delaware and performs in clubs in a jazz duo he formed with Eric Wortham of Philadelphia, a piano player and high school friend.
Not bad for an Edgewater Park kid who said he used to get a severe case of nerves when he had to perform in front of a group of more than a few people.
“ I feel pretty comfortable now performing live, but it wasn’t always so easy, “ he said. “It’s really just about being prepared. Of course, you do it enough times and the nerves go away.