CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN STUTTGART

Tom Marcel Stephan (*25.07.1993 in Stuttgart, Bad Cannstatt) grew up as an only child in extremely precarious family circumstances. After attending elementary school, he was initially recommended for secondary school (Hauptschule), but then attended a secondary modern school (Realschule) where, after several changes of residence and school, he was about to leave without a degree. To protect himself in this case, he took an external secondary school examination in the 9th grade. Shortly before reaching secondary school graduation age, his family situation deteriorated dramatically, prompting the family court to order his immediate placement in a youth welfare facility in the Black Forest. After moving, he lost all contact with his family.

LIFE IN ALTENSTEIG

From then on, he lived in the Christian Youth Village in Altensteig for three years and completed his secondary school education at the village’s own secondary school. He then transferred to the social sciences grammar school in Nagold with the aim of studying psychology. During this time, he met Heide Simon, his first piano teacher, who supported him personally beyond music lessons and taught him piano for seven years on a voluntary basis, despite a commitment from the youth welfare office to cover the costs. He became involved in public piano playing at an early age ^{[1][2][3][4][5]}, was allowed to rehearse in the Altensteig concert hall and regularly participated in the town’s art projects ^[6]. After the CJD received a large donation for new kitchens, one of his first paintings was selected as a possible thank-you gift and subsequently exhibited in the former Landesbausparkasse Altensteig. The branch management then arranged Tom Stephan’s first exhibition, which he organised at the age of 20 in the Neubulach Town Hall Café ^[7].

A few months later, he was no longer able to remain in the residential group due to his age, so his move-out date was set for his 21st birthday, and he was threatened with homelessness in 2014. This was a period that had a significant impact on his art and music. He left the social sciences secondary school without a degree, but nevertheless persisted in his studies. With the help of a solicitor and a temporary injunction, Tom Stephan gained time to find his first flat in Altensteig, which he financed with his child benefit and a weekend job as a newspaper delivery boy.

After completing a voluntary social year in a school kindergarten for mentally disabled children, he returned to the Nagold vocational school centre in 2015 – this time to attend the two-year commercial vocational college – with the aim of obtaining his technical college entrance qualification. In his first year, he took the delta examination at the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University. ^[8] and qualified for dual study programmes in tax consulting in 2016. Despite receiving a training offer from a medium-sized tax consulting firm, he also took the Delta examination at the University of Mannheim in 2017 ^[9]. Thanks to this, he was the only one in his year without a high school diploma to be able to enrol at university. He initially returned to Stuttgart to study economics at the University of Hohenheim and, before moving away, donated works of art to the social institutions where he had lived; some of them are still on display there today ^[10].

STUDYING IN STUTTGART AND BIELEFELD
Tom Stephan was the only member of his family to pursue an academic career, financing his studies through the BAföG advance payment procedure ^[11], which is only granted if parents who are obliged to pay maintenance refuse to do so. His freelance work as a workshop leader ^[12] served as his first source of income to establish his independence. However, he interrupted his studies in 2018 and 2019 due to several months of hospital stays. During this time, he began to express his experiences not only through art and music, but also in written form, and embarked on a further career as an author ^[13][14]. At the end of 2022, he moved to Bielefeld to pursue his master’s degree.

There, Tom Stephan began teaching piano himself and initiated Bielefeld as a new location for the non-profit music project Open Piano for Refugees. ^[15]. His improvised piano work 10 Variations in F minor, with a playing time of almost ten minutes, exemplifies the high value he placed on his own creative power, which was always an important part of his teaching. He dedicated the piece to his former piano teacher Heide Simon ^[16]. Before reaching the age of thirty, Tom Stephan had created over 400 works ^[17]. He compiled his catalogue raisonné retrospectively in 2019, which includes art, texts, piano works and diaries. As his works were already in circulation, it was not possible to record all of them, especially those from his time in Altensteig.

Towards the end of his studies, Tom Stephan became increasingly involved in voluntary work ^[18][19][20], particularly in school social work, where, as a board member of the university group Arbeiterkind (working-class children), he encouraged pupils from non-academic families and difficult backgrounds in their plans to pursue a degree ^[21]. Tom Stephan currently works in the public sector in Gütersloh and lives in Bielefeld ^[22].