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Stephen Richards was born and raised in New York City. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Music from New York University, a Masters Degree in Music Composition from Columbia University, was invested Cantor at the School of Sacred Music of Hebrew Union College and received an Honorary Doctorate of Sacred Music from that institution. He has served on the Board of the American Conference of Cantors, the National Commission on Synagogue Music, and was the Project Director and Editor of Manginot, a Music Curriculum for Jewish Schools, published by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

He was the cantor/educator of Congregation B'nai Tikvah in Walnut Creek, California from August, 1994 through June, 2000, where he is now Cantor Emeritus. Prior to entering the School of Sacred Music, Stephen worked as a composer-arranger in musical theater. AfterÊcompleting his Cantorial studies in 1969 he served congregations in Rochester, New York, and Indianapolis before becoming the Editor of Transcontinental Music Publications and a faculty member of the School of Sacred Music of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He then moved to Phoenix, and served with Temple Beth Israel for eleven years.

He has sung with and directed Pro Cantione of Phoenix, Chorus Cappella of Northern California and Cantare Con Vivo; directed the music for North Phoenix Corporate Ministry Programs, and was the conductor of the Bay Area Jewish Chorale in San Francisco from 1997 through 1999. Cantor Richards has fulfilled commissions for the Chorus of the San Francisco Symphony, the School of Sacred Music, the Woodwind Department of the University of the Pacific, the Milwaukee Jewish Community Chorale, as well as over a hundred congregations. The Cantare Con Vivo Chamber Ensemble premiered his choral cycle, "Songs of the Mountain" at concerts in Walnut Creek and Oakland, California. Prayer - A Suite For Oboe and Strings was composed for the Phoenix Symphony, recorded by the Krakow Symphony Orchestra and released on a CD by Master Musicians Collective. Kimbal Wheeler and the Liverpool Symphony, with Gerard Schwartz conducting, recorded his song cycle, Songs of a Survivor. Echad!, a thorough-composed Shabbat Evening Service, was commissioned in 1997 by Central Synagogue of New York, and has been presented in Jewish services throughout North America. It arranges congregational music for cantor, choir and instrumental ensemble. It is an eighty-minute through-composed composition, with no spoken words.

Cantor Richards's most recent recorded work is The Ballad of Ruth: An Opera In One Act, libretto by Michael Laurence, recorded in Israel by Michael Isaacson and members of the Israel Philharmonic.

He is married to Marjorie Morse Richards. They have six children and nine grandchildren.

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