A native of Mississippi, Stephen Roberts is a graduate of Yale University and the University of Oklahoma. Roberts was the recipient of a Fulbright full grant to Vienna, Austria, where he studied organ at the Hochschule fuer Musik with the organist and composer Anton Heiller. In 1974 Roberts was the first student admitted to the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and graduated in the first class. His organ teachers have included Mildred Andrews, Robert Baker, Peter Planyavsky; he also studied harpsichord with Ralph Kirkpatrick and Isolde Ahlgrim.

He was Director of Music at Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University for 12 years and has held a number of church and university positions. His students have won a number of competitions , prizes, and awards, including a Fulbright grant. He has performed in 18 countries on four continents in venues including the Konzerthaus in Vienna; the Great Hall of the Philharmonic in St. Petersburg, Russia; King’s College, Cambridge, England, St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna; St. Sulpice in Paris; and the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. Roberts has also been a featured performer at a number of international music festivals, most recently the International Festival of Renaissance and Baroque Music in Bolivia.

Roberts has also written a number of articles for music journals and publications in North America and Europe.