Stephen Deazley is artistic director and co-founder of Love Music. He balances his work in Scotland with a portfolio of large-scale community music projects across the UK, as a composer, music director, chorus master and consultant. Recent appearances include at BBC Proms in the Park, and at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, where he curated and co-presented a community singing event for 40,000 singers for Big Big Sing.
His music has been premiered at the Royal Festival Hall and Royal Albert Hall, at Bath International Music Festival and in Scotland at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall and Glasgow’s City Halls. He has won national awards for his composition work in a community setting.
Stephen has written a significant number of works for young and amateur musicians and singers, including youth and children’s operas performed by Scottish Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera North, Opera Theatre Company and Mahogany Opera Group. His music has been recorded by The National Youth Choir of Scotland and performed by the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland.
Stephen was appointed as composer in residence for the inclusive children’s orchestral project In Harmony at Sage Gateshead in 2014. He has contributed to a national arts resource for the Scottish Care Inspectorate and Luminate, Scotland’s Creative Ageing Organisation, and was recently appointed as consultant on a major community singing research study at Calgary University in Canada.
He loves music of all kinds and delights in arranging an eclectic repertoire for Love Music Community Choir including Bowie, Blondie, Bacharach, Beethoven and Kraftwerk.
In days without music, he likes to look up at buildings and dreams of one day building his own house.
Everything about it was clever and cutting edge… a most incredible and uplifting event, as though Tom Waites and Stephen Sondheim had come together with Roald Dahl. Deazley is quite simply a visionary… he makes real, challenging art with the children who are lucky enough to work with him. ~ The Songbook of Unsingable Songs
