Dr. Allen began his musical career by gaining performing and teaching diplomas in brass instrument playing and by winning national awards and television appearances as a euphonium soloist. In 1979 he won the UK National Solo Champion award in the Open Section followed by a Scholarship from the Royal Academy of Music. He graduated from the Birmingham Conservatoire with the highest B.A. academic honors degree in that institution's 100-year history. His formative musicological training was shaped by Alan Jeffris (Cambridgeshire), Anthony Cross (Birmingham), Dr. Donald Mitchell (Aldeburgh, Suffolk) and Hans Keller (Dartington, Devon). After studying composition with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Dr. Robert Simpson and conducting with Sir Simon Rattle (and his teachers, George Hurst and John Carewe), Dr. Allen went on to conduct his compositions in London (Royal Albert Hall), Los Angeles (Shrine Auditorium), Boston (Boston Gardens) and Australia (the Sydney Opera House).

A CD of his music, Across the River, was produced in 1999. His Gaudy Flourishes was commissioned by and premiered at Oxford Universityin 2004 and subsequently recorded to cd with a performance on radio. It was premeiered in the USA in June 2006 at the International Trumpet Conference. His Heroes: A Symphonic Fanfare for concert band (2004) and brass band (2005), written with a Rider Fellowship in Composition, was premiered at Rider by the Blawenburg Band and Princeton Brass Band respectively. His arrangement of Sir Michael Tippett's Adagio (titled Tippett's Adagio) was premiered by the Princeton Brass Band at Rider in 2005 by special permission of Schott & Co., London and The Tippett Foundation. He founded The Princeton Brass Band in 2004, of which he is Musical Director. The band have given premieres of works by Peter Meechan, Derek Bourgeois and Sir Paul McCartney. He was appointed Assistant Musical Director of the Blawenburg Band in 2006.

As a performer Dr. Allen is currently Principal Euphonium and Soloist with the Blawenburg Band, with whom he has recorded solos. He has also been guest Principal Euphonium with Imperial Brass Band (Woodbridge), The Eastern Wind Symphony (The College of New Jersey), and has performed solos with The Princeton Brass Band. In 2006 legendary euphoniumist Trevor Groom (Munn and Felton's/GUS/Virtuosi Brass Band of Great Britain/Kings of Brass) wrote of his playing: 'Dr. Allen displays great dynamic range, sensitivity in musically demanding passages and enviable dexterity of finger technique. Steve demonstrates professional status as an exponent of the euphonium'.

Dr. Allen's masters and doctoral studies at OxfordUniversity (publication forthcoming) centered on the operas of Benjamin Britten and he has been published in The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Britten, ed. Mervyn Cooke (Cambridge University Press, 1999) and the International Journal of the Humanities (2005, www.Humanities-Journal.com, for whom he has also served as a Reader) and the Journal of Musicological Research (Spring 2006). He has edited chapters in Rock and Roll: An Introduction by Michael Campbell and James Brody, 2nd ed. (Schirmer, 2007) and had the honor of recording the euphonium examples on the CD accompanying Dr. Scott Whitener's seminal A Guide to Brass, 3rd ed. (Schirmer, 2007). He is currently assisting with the 12th edition of Basic Materials in Music Theory by Harder and Steinke (Prentice Hall).

Dr. Allen has tutored in music for the Queen’s, St. Hilda's and SomervilleColleges of OxfordUniversity, where he was on the ‘Official List of Recognized Teachers’ (1998, Strohm). He has lectured at Oxford and at the Britten-Pears School of Advanced Musical Studies in Aldeburgh, England. He has lectured on Britten’s music for Australian National Radio and was a guest lecturer at the ‘Britten Festival’, SUNY, Fredonia, NY in 2005. In Fall 2006 Dr. Allen was Visiting Faculty for the Music Department of Princeton University.

Dr. Allen is Assistant Professor II of Music at Rider University. He teaches courses on Music Theory, Music History Survey, Music and Society (Music Introduction), World Music, Beethoven and the Romanitc Age, The Music of the Beatles, A Hisotry of Pop and Rock Music, Great Composers, Musical Masterworks, The Arts in Contemporary Civilization, Composition, Music and the Theater and The Operas of Benjamin Britten (at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, and at Rutgers University). His current research interests continue in the music of Britten (a book is in preparation), the Beatles, Radiohead, the history of pop and rock, the Batman (1989) movie soundtrack, and the history of the brass band movement. Dr. Allen is a member of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP); the American Musicological Society (AMS); the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA); the North American Brass Band Association (NABBA); the Birmingham Conservatoire Alumni Association (UK); the Oxford Alumni Association of New York (OAANY).