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Composition
Gideon’s
Dream (a new musical) 19-21 November, Vienna
Richard
was commissioned along with Adam Sandel to write a new musical called Gideon’s Dream, based on the childhood memoir of Gideon
Sorokin whose family fled Nazi-occupied Vienna to start a new life
in Palestine. (Book and lyrics by
Adam Sandel.)
The first act was performed in
San Francisco in November 2006. Richard returned to San Francisco in September 2007 to rehearse and
perform the complete show. [Read more details on the San Francisco performances]
The full production of Gideon’s Dream will be performed in Vienna 19-21 November 2008. Details will be posted here when they become available.
Alberto
the Dancing Alligator Edmonton,
Canada, June and August 2008
Richard’s
latest composition is a children’s musical (book
and lyrics by Jan Taylor) based
on the children’s book Alberto the Dancing Alligator
by Richard Waring. Richard workshopped
Alberto when he was in Canada November – December
2007, and the show was previewed to young audiences in June.
It enjoyed a full run during the 27th Annual Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival 14-28 August 2008. You can watch the video interview by Vue Weekly or read a review.
Two Blondes London,
May 2008
Richard was in
Vancouver in November 2007 where he and director
Stephen Heatley finished the sequel to their 1995 show Two Blondes.
It was be performed in London in May 2008.
Four
Seasons
Richard’s
latest choral work is a four-movement song cycle called Four
Seasons, about growing up on the prairies. (Lyrics
by Barry Thorson.)
Secret project
Richard won’t say much
about what he is currently composing, however it has something to
do with his new love affair with Italy. Stay tuned.
2008 Temple Festival
Richard was delighted to play three
performances at La
Grande Marque in London’s historic
Middle
Temple:
The performances were part of 2008
Temple Festival – Celebrating 400 years.
Cabaret Open Mic Every
Tuesday, London
When he's in the UK, Richard often performs for any singers who want
to sing at the Cellar
Door, near Aldwych on the Strand, two blocks south of Covent
Garden. When he's not here, other accompanists will be there with the lovely hosts and singers.
This venue started its life in Victorian
days as an underground men’s toilet, and as you can see, it’s
been beautifully refurbished:
And take note:
The photos below show the street-level entrance,
a gorgeous glass sculpture that constantly changes colours.
2007
Little
Shop of Horrors
November – December, Red Deer College, Canada
Richard was asked to music direct
Little Shop of Horrors at Red Deer College in Canada. He
was delighted to return to the college teaching environment in his
home province and reconnect with so many long-time colleagues.
While at the college he also
taught and performed a Noel Coward show.
Dream
World (an intergalactic
musical comedy) 7 October, Savona,
Italy
Dream
World (book and lyrics
by Adam Sandel) was selected for a Shakespeare festival in
Savona, in Northern Italy, and a concert reading with four singers
and piano was performed to a very warm audience as part of “Shakespeare
in Town! III edizione 2007 Un sogno di una notte di mezza estate,”
organised by Salamander
Compagnia Treatrale.
Gideon’s
Dream (a new musical) 14-15
September, San Francisco
Richard
was commissioned along with Adam Sandel to write a new musical called
Gideon’s Dream, based on the childhood memoir of Gideon
Sorokin whose family fled Nazi-occupied Vienna to start a new life
in Palestine. (Book and lyrics by
Adam Sandel.)
The first act was performed in
November 2006. Richard returned to San Francisco to rehearsing and
perform the complete show.
[Details]
Homage to Cole Porter and the Musical
14 April (Guiliano, Italy) &
29 May (London)
Richard performed an evening with Philip
Giorgi, celebrating the songs of Cole Porter, George and Ira
Gershwin, and Rodgers and Hart. The show is based on Philip’s
Fringe show A Swell Party, and includes some new arrangements
by Richard.
- The April performance was at the
Teatro Nuovo, Valleggia, Quiliano, Italy, hosted by La
Compagnia Salamander and Outlaw
Theatre.
- The May performance was at the British
Music Hall Society in London.
Cabaret
Confidential
Host Jamie Anderson
presentMMP’s
pick of the best cabaret performers working in the capital today
in a new venue, The Space.
A converted
Chapel from the 1600s, with many original features including stained
glass and Minstrels Gallery, The Space continues MMP’s successful
showcase for up-and-coming talent from the worlds of musical theatre
and cabaret.
Anthony Newley show January
& March
Richard performed in the London production
of Anthony
Newley: The Singer and his Songs before the show left for
the Edinburgh
Fringe.
Miss Kimberley
He performed with the fabulous Miss
Kimberley most Wednesdays that he was in London. (Who says her
feets too big? Come see for yourself.) [The
Edge top floor, 11
Soho Square, Wednesdays, 10 p.m.]
Live Lounge
Richard co-hosted a cabaret
open mic at the Live Lounge on Kensington High Street. For
singsers to bring or borrow music, and for fans to come listen.
Sundays at Sopranos. [Downstairs,
183
Kensington High Street. Sundays at 7 p.m.]
All that Jazz! 4
and 18 March, 8 and 29 April, 6 May; 2 June
A three-ring circus of comedy, music and variety in the plush surroundings
of Soho’s sexiest cabaret venue, this show ran at the Soho
Revue Bar (formerly Too2Much).
It starred the ‘King of Cabaret’
Paul L Martin
with the marvellous Sarah-Louise Young, broadway baby Marnie Baumer,
and the razor-tongued Dusty Limits.
The Words and Music of Noël Coward
29-31 May
A three-day
workshop led by Paul
L Martin, in which Paul and Richard explore Noël Coward’s
legacy to cabaret and revue, and the large body of work he achieved
in this genre.
A practical workshop for performers with
good knowledge and experience of cabaret performance themselves,
incorporating the history of Coward and his effect on the art form,
as well as re-creating some of his cabaret work in group form and
as solo. At The
Actors Centre in Covent Garden. [Map]
Rich
Rogue Arts presents: Beg, Borrow, and Steal 24
March in Leeds
Beg,
Borrow, and Steal: a musical evening exploring the legacy of
The Beggar’s Opera.
Step into the London of 1728. Teeming with
whores, highwaymen and ne’er do wells—this is the world
depicted in Hogarth’s famous series The Rake’s Progress.
John Gay brings this underworld of London to life in his ballad
opera The Beggar’s Opera.
Written in 1728, it was based on an idea
of Jonathan Swift, who proposed “ …what think you, of
a Newgate pastoral among the thieves and whores there?” The
opera is made up of popular folk tunes of the time, and even includes
melodies stolen from Handel.
The Beggar’s Opera was a smash
hit in its day, and in the 20th century has inspired many arrangers
and composers to put their own original stamp on it. The most famous
adaptation is Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht’s 1928 version
The Threepenny Opera. Beggar’s Holiday is Duke
Ellington’s Broadway-Jazz adaptation of 1946.
Join Richard and accomplished actor/singers
Steven
Sparling and Heather Weir in this new collaboration that
explores the rich musical legacy of
The Beggar’s Opera as arranged by Richard Bonynge,
Duke Ellington, Richard Link, and others.
[Details]
Cabaret 14
& 16 March
A two-day workshop on the art of cabaret
led by Paul
L Martin.
A highly practical and hands-on workshop
to maximise your opportunity to try out material whilst obtaining
tips, ideas, and knowledge to help you hone and perfect your act.
At The
Actors Centre in Covent Garden. [Map]
A
Little Princess 20 January
Kids
Acting Against Cancer mounted a production of Richard and Tegan’s
full-length musical, A
Little Princess in the Bomhard Theatre at the Kentucky
Center for the Arts in Louisville, Kentucky, on 20 January 2007.
Coaching, Los Angeles 4-10
January
Richard was in Los Angeles coaching children
and helping them to compete in an international singing competition.
2006
After moving to London on 1
January 2006, Richard music-directed an amateur dramatics production
of Follies and a college production of Bat Boy the Musical,
coached cabaret workshops, played piano on a barge, and taught
musical theatre programs for children and adults. As detailed above,
he’s also been writing new music
and reworking some of his compositions. Here are some highlights:
He
performed with Paul
L Martin’s Cabaret
Confidential, in the Theatre Museum’s paintings gallery,
on the last Saturday of every month. December’s performance
was the last performance (ever!) as the London
Theatre Museum has closed.
In
November, he spent two weeks in San Francisco, rehearsing the cast
and music-directing a concert reading of his latest musical, Gideon’s
Dream.
In
October, he spent three weeks in North America, writing and workshopping
his latest compositions. In San Francisco he workshopped and cast
Gideon’s
Dream, in Edmonton he workshopped Alberto
the Dancing Alligator and presented Four
Seasons, and in Vancouver he co-wrote the sequel to Two
Blondes with director Stephen Heatley.
In
August and September Richard played five evening cabarets with Paul
L Martin at Too2Much
in Soho. The show featured a variety of singers in a new rehearsed-open-mic
format.
He
performed with Diva
Eve at the Aga
Khan Foundation Partnership Walk in The
Regent’s Park in London 24 July, and in Birmingham on
30 July.
He
spent a week in New York in June, directing young singers in an
international singing competition.
In
April, he spent two weeks in Canada workshopping Alberto
the Dancing Aligator.
Richard
performed with Paul
L Martin at the Dorchester
Hotel on 29 March, and at Sopranos Piano Bar many Sunday evenings.
His
song I Wonder if I’m Really Gay (from Watch
Me Shine the cabaret musical) was featured in the LGCSF
spring cabaret Love Bites. LGCSF is also in the midst of
recording his cantata Woven
Together. The release date will be posted here when it’s
announced.
2005
Edmonton October–November
2005
Richard was invited to return
to the Canadian arts college where he taught for many years, and
he music-directed and conducted their autumn production of Sondheim’s
Sunday in the Park with George. The show ran October 28 through
November 5 in Edmonton. There’s more information at the Grant
MacEwan College site.
San Francisco September
2005
As Musical Director at Saint Paulus Lutheran
Church from early 2000 until September 2005, Richard wrote music
for almost every service. Under his direction, the church choir,
the Joyful Noise Singers, performed an excerpt from his choral composition,
A Joyful Noise, on September 18. They’ll be performing
the full work as part of the ground-breaking ceremony for the new
church. To be notified, join Richard’s
email list. For more information on the chorus and the church,
visit www.saintpaulus.org.
San Francisco June
2005
 Watch
Me Shine—a cabaret
musical!
The song inspired thousands when it was performed
at the Sydney Opera House. The cabaret musical based on the song
performed to rave
reviews at San Francisco Pride 2005.
California State
Assemblyman Mark Leno said “In the tradition of Gilbert &
Sullivan, Rogers & Hammerstein, and Kander & Ebb, we’re
gonna have Sandel & Link.”
Someone else
referred to Watch Me Shine as the “gay Beach Blanket
Babylon,” saying it is destined to play in San Francisco,
New York, Toronto, and Vancouver for the next 20 years. If you are
interested in producing this hit show in your city, or want a copy
of the live recording, please contact 
or
Richard Link.
Plans are in
the works for a production in London in 2008.
San Jose June
2005
The Silicon Valley Gay Men’s Chorus
gave a flawless and touching rendition of Richard’s composition  I
Will Be Right Here at their summer concert. Recordings and
DVDs are available directly
from the chorus. The solo version is included on Richard’s
latest CD.
San Francisco May
2005
Richard’s
four-movement cantata, Woven
Together, was the final piece in the Lesbian/Gay
Chorus of San Francisco’s historic Silver Anniversary
Concert in San Francisco in May.
It was very
touching during the second movement, Song of Remembrance,
when a chorus member read the names of the “Angel Chorus”—members
of the chorus who have passed away. And it was heartwarming to see
past members of the chorus file on stage to add their voices to
the last movement, Woven Together.
Special Silver Anniversary CDs of the live
recording are available directly from the
chorus.
The chorus is making a studio recording of
Woven Together which will be available in the summer of 2006.
Woven Together
also generated a great deal of interest at Gala Choruses’s
7th
International Festival in Montréal last July, when it
was performed at Montréal’s Place des Arts, in the
Theatre
Maisoneuve, and it received sustained applause at both the spring
concert of the Oakland-East
Bay Gay Men’s Chorus and the Lesbian/Gay
Chorus of San Francisco’s spring concert Composers
in the Mist.
If you or
your chorus would like to review the score,
please ask. Recordings
are available from Gala
Choruses, and you can hear
a preview here.
2004
Edmonton June
2004
Richard’s Alma Mater Chorus, the Edmonton
Vocal Minority, performed I Will Be Right Here at their
June 2004 concert.
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