Stevens recalls, "I noticed when I got to Eastman that the techniques I was using--the one-handed roll, rotary strokes, doing Baroque trills with one hand, two-part Bach inventions, things like that--got a lot of attention.
"[2] Stevens promptly switched to concert percussion, studied with John Beck and received a Performer's Certificate.
[3] Stevens' performance at the first PASIC (Percussive Arts Society International Convention) in Rochester, New York, in 1976 was a seminal event for all in attendance.
Since I had been doing an independent roll from the moment I began playing xylophone in 1969, I personally had no appreciation of how "revolutionary" the technique was, but as late as 1976, when I performed at the first Percussive Arts Society International Convention, most percussionists were seeing the independent roll, my "vertical Musser grip", rotary-based strokes and my extended-length birch handles for the first time.Stevens continues to be an active performer and clinician worldwide and has appeared at a dozen Percussive Arts Society International Conventions (PASIC) since 1976, and served as Professor of Marimba at the Royal Academy of Music in London, England, from 1997 to 2004.
On November 10, 2006, Stevens was officially inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame during the 2006 PASIC in Austin, Texas.
Still in business today, Marimba Productions Inc. comprises Malletech instruments and mallets, Keyboard Percussion Publications, and Resonator Records.
4 Route 666 Atamasco and the Wooden Shalter2 (for Synthesized Tape and Amplified Marimba) 1 commissioned by a consortium of William Moersch, Gordon Stout, and Stevens Diliberto, John.