A major force in contemporary percussion music in the U.S., Steven Schick is also an important educator. He has commissioned some 100 new percussion works, including David Lang's The Anvil Chorus and Brian Ferneyhough's Bone Alphabet. Schick performed Karlheinz Stockhausen's Zyklus frequently and successfully in diverse venues. In 1994, Schick made his recording debut with the recital album Born to Be Wild. He taught at the University of California at San Diego for many years, reaching the rank of Distinguished Professor before retiring in the late 2010s. He spent a period of time as percussionist in the New York ensemble Bang on a Can. From 2011 to 2019, Schick was director of the San Francisco Contemporary Players. Schick has made some 15 recordings, including a set of the complete early percussion works of Stockhausen. In 2022, he released the album Weather Systems I: A Hard Rain.