Stefan Freund received a BM with High Distinction from the Indiana University School of Music and an MM and a DMA from the Eastman School of Music. His primary composition teachers included Pulitzer Prize winners Christopher Rouse and Joseph Schwantner as well as Augusta Read Thomas, Frederick Fox, and Don Freund, his father. He studied cello with Steven Doane, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, and Peter Spurbeck, among others. He is presently Professor of Composition at the University of Missouri. Previously he was Assistant Professor of Composition at the Eastman School of Music.

Freund is the recipient of two William Schuman Prizes and the Boudleaux Bryant Prize from BMI, five ASCAP Morton Gould Grants, twenty ASCAP Plus Awards, a Music Merit Award from the National Society of Arts and Letters, and the Howard Hanson Prize. He was selected as the 2004 Music Teachers National Association-Shepherd Distinguished Composer of the Year. In 2006 and 2013 he won Outstanding Faculty Research and Creative Activity Awards from MU. He was selected as Professor of the Year by the MU College of Arts and Science in 2024.

Freund has received commissions from the Barlow Endowment, the New Spectrum Foundation, the Carnegie Hall Corporation, the Lincoln Center Festival, the New York Youth Symphony, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Verdehr Trio, Town Hall Seattle, Sheldon Concert Hall, and SCI/ASCAP. His music has been performed at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Library of Congress as well as by ensembles such as the Copenhagen Philharmonic, the St. Louis Symphony, and the Phoenix Symphony. International performances include the Berliner Philharmonie, the Moscow International Performing Arts Center, Glinka Hall (St. Petersburg), Queen's Hall (Copenhagen), the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, and concert halls in seven other European countries, Canada, and Mexico. His works have been recorded on the Albany, Centaur, Crystal, Innova, New Focus, and Ravello labels.

Active as a performer, conductor, and producer of new music, Freund is the founding cellist of the new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound. His cello performances include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Met Museum, Merkin Hall, Millennium Park, Disney Hall, the Barbican (UK), the Hermitage Theatre (RU), the Muzikgebouw (ND), the World Financial Center, Culture Station Seoul, and the Beijing Modern Music Festival. His cello playing can be heard on 18 released albums featuring Alarm Will Sound. In addition, Freund is the Artistic Director of the Mizzou New Music Initiative and the Music Director of the Columbia Civic Orchestra.