Stephen Cairns is a music graduate of Queen's University, Belfast where his trombone teacher was Danny Longstaff (then with the Ulster Orchestra). He also received lessons from Alfred Flaszynski after being awarded a Harty Scholarship.

Stephen has been a member of the British Trombone Society since 1985 and does most of his playing today with brass bands and his brass quintet. He has been a director of brass bands for some twenty years and is presently musical director of the First Old Boys Band, Belfast, with whom he has competed in the European Brass Band finals in Glasgow and the Cambridge Masters.

He is Head of Music at Belfast High School.