Stephanie Power was born in London in 1965 and has a very diverse musical background. She studied for three years as a Junior Exhibitioner at the Guildhall School of Music before enrolling at York University, from where she graduated with 1st class Honours in 1987. At York, she managed to focus her entire degree on 20th Century and contemporary music, much to the chagrin of the external examiner! Whilst still a student, she began working as a professional guitarist and percussionist, initially with Northern Music Theatre; and it was at York that she met the renowned soprano Jane Manning, who invited her to join her new ensemble Jane's Minstrels. Upon graduation, Stephanie spent the next six years performing with these and other contemporary ensembles including Icebreaker, Gemini, Lontano and Innererklang, alongside a successful stint as administrator of Women in Music.

In 1990, she embarked on an ostensibly very different road by undertaking an apprenticeship with a Native American shaman, with whom she trained extensively as a shamanic drummer over the next decade. She moved to Wales in 1993 to better focus on these studies, and coincidentally began to explore more thoroughly her love of rock music. She has run rockschools and song-writing workshops throughout South Wales, the UK and abroad in addition to instrumental teaching and shamanic drumming workshops.

She has lived near Abergavenny for nearly five years and, upon completion of her apprenticeship, is now concentrating on composing in a variety of ‘serious’ and ‘popular’ genres reflecting her diverse tastes and experiences. Two chamber works, Dreamtides for violin and piano, and Music for ’Cello and Piano have recently been premiered in Cardiff as part of a workshop concert by PM Ensemble, and a large-scale work, The Hub, combining electronics with live performers, will be premiered at Blackwood Miners’ Institute on 19th July 2002. This piece is the fruit of many months working throughout the borough of Caerphilly as PRS-funded composer-in-residence. Her first String Quartet was played by members of Chamber Domaine at the recent Vale of Glamorgan Festival.