A city needs a composer

Dean Stevenson and the Arco Set
Friday April 16
Peacock Theatre


Presented by the Salamanca Arts Centre and Dean Stevenson


by Stephenie Cahalan


A city needs a composer to write its story in music. Be it the story of a suburban kitchen or a streetscape, a composer writes stories with music, like a photographer tells a story using light. They are like the playwrights that make work for local actors; the tailors that bespoke clothes of a place, era and climate or poets who capture the colours that cross their path.


From the perspective of a non-musician, the thing that seems to mark a composer is that they think beyond the instrument they are playing , to the layers of a composition that provide a platform for the talents of other musicians.


Dean Stevenson achieved this with the Arco Set, a group of young, skilled, local musicians who played on Friday night at the Peacock Theatre. The evening offered a repertoire of works written for both Stevenson as solo performer, the band and the Cloud Suite written for the small orchestra. There was something about the Peacock's intimate setting and the collection of strings that took me back ten years to a show by My Friend the Chocolate Cake. Like David Bridie, Stevenson neatly combined casual guitar with conventional orchestral arrangements to make music that was utterly original and captivating to the audience.