Andrew Linham

News and Gigs

Autumn 2020

Somehow, in the midst of the pandemic, it has been a very busy Autumn.

Much of my time has been spent expanding the LyricLand resources, creating over 40 videos of primary School music sessions on my
YouTube channel. I encourage you to subscribe as there are many more videos in the pipeline. You can find the content now embedded within the ever growing www.lyricland.co.uk where these videos find their home. The students of Ardleigh Green Learning Federation have been really enjoying them, their particular favourite being the example music video I made for the Year 6 Songwriting Project, which was somewhat of a viral hit!



Alongside LyricLand my theatre work still continues with socially distanced rehearsals and Zoom sessions on a variety of shows. My 10 Minute Musical 'The Bank Of Mum and Dad' (2018) was featured on the Leeway Productions Podcast with an excerpt performed by students of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, which you see in the video below.



I must say I am particularly proud of the little show Andrew Shore and I wrote and I'll always be very fond of the life the talented students gave it during a global pandemic!

We've also worked through some more drafts of 'Never Never' and had an exciting first read through day with fantastic choreographer
Sunny Saini in October and I do so hope that next year we actually get to bring the piece to some young people, a stage and an audience. It's a massive show and I want everyone to see it!

Some socially distanced big band rehearsals started up briefly before Lockdown 2 began and I was glad to visit the Vortex, a venue I'm fond of, for a rehearsal with
Stuart McClean Fowler's big band, a video of which you can see below. Beautiful transcriptions of Billy May arrangements, and spot my big moment at the end of this with a brief Baritone Sax breakdown. It was so wonderful to play with real musicians again!



I also submitted a short play to the Queens' Theatre Hornchurch 'Tiny Plays' with Jules Tipton which got turned into an actual performance with actors, something I was not expecting, so enjoy this video of my 10 line piece, 'Doctor Doctor'.



I was also invited to add some Baritone Saxophone to a Thriller video by Toby Simmons and the Trinity 250 band which was a highlight of Halloween, so enjoy this fun video too (no costume required!)



It's funny because I don't feel like I've been particularly busy, but then you look through that collection of projects and realise you've been busier than you think! It's looking to be a quieter Christmas as I'm still not back to real life performing yet, but next year should be better I'm hopeful!

I hope you are all continuing to stay safe and well in these mad times and I'm sure I'll have gigs to tell you all about soon. But for now, why not play '
Don't Clap This One Back' - surely you've run out of things to watch on Netflix now?

Andrew