He was a pupil at the Royal College of Music.
His career started early when at the age of 14 he was appointed to Cartmel Priory as organist.
[2] He was a proponent of Tudor church music and he published the Lamentations of Robert Whyte (a former organist at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster).
At a time when many organ recitals favoured transcriptions of orchestral works, Stephenson eschewed them in favour of organ compositions.
His recital programmes included the sonatas and larger chorale fantasias of Max Reger and the later symphonies of Charles Widor.