Rick van der Linden
Encyclopedia
Rick van der Linden is a province situated on the North Sea in the northwest part of the Netherlands. The provincial capital is Haarlem and its largest city is Amsterdam.-Geography:...
- 22 January 2006, Groningen) was a Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and keyboardist
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
. Van der Linden first gained fame as a member of Ekseption
Ekseption
Ekseption was a Dutch progressive rock ensemble with changing membership, active from 1967 to 1989, growing out of the bands The Jokers and Incrowd. The group started out playing jazz, pop and R&B covers...
, but played in several other bands including most notably Trace
Trace (band)
Trace is a Dutch progressive rock band founded by Rick van der Linden after leaving Ekseption.- History :In 1973 after releasing their album entitled Trinity, the members of the band Ekseption asked Rick van der Linden to leave the band...
, as well as solo. Like his contemporary Keith Emerson
Keith Emerson
Keith Noel Emerson is an English keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of the Keith Emerson Trio, John Brown's Bodies, The T-Bones, V.I.P.s, P.P. Arnold's backing band, and The Nice , he was a founder of Emerson, Lake & Palmer , one of the early supergroups, in 1970...
, van der Linden was best known for his popular reworkings of classical music by Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
and other composers.
History
Rick van der Linden was born in the village of Badhoevedorp, not far from AmsterdamAmsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, the second of five van der Linden children. His family moved when Rick was only 5 weeks old to Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
, where they lived until 1957. Rick started piano lessons at age 7, but gave them up two years later because he wasn't enjoying them. When he was 11, his family moved again, to Haarlem
Haarlem
Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...
where Rick attended the Triniteitslyceum. At 13, his father convinced Rick to try the piano again, so he was enrolled at the highly-regarded Haarlem School of Music. Two years later he became a private pupil of the famous Haarlem professor, Piet Vincent. At 17, he entered the Haarlem Conservatory
Conservatorium van Amsterdam
The Conservatorium van Amsterdam is a Dutch academy of music located in Amsterdam. This school is the music division of the Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, the city's vocational university of arts...
where Aad Broersen and Albert de Klerk tutored him in the organ. Rick finished his studies two years later and in 1965 passed exams at the Royal Conservatory
Royal Conservatory of The Hague
The Royal Conservatory of The Hague is a conservatorium of music, providing higher education in music and dance, it is located in The Hague, Netherlands.-The Conservatory:...
in Den Haag, winning honors in piano, organ, harmony and counterpoint. Rick thought he might become a teacher at the Haarlem Conservatory.
Meanwhile in the early 1960s, Rick fell in love with rock and roll, along with jazz and ballet music. While still a student he took a job in a nightclub bar, playing foxtrots, boogie-woogie, ragtime, films soundtracks, blues, tango, pop, Strauss waltzes and cabaret tunes while studying the classical masters during the day. He also found time to write music for several local ballet ensembles. In 1964, he formed his first band, a piano trio, and later a brass jazz septet which played for fun and rehearsal only (never playing any gigs). After graduation, Rick joined the Occasional Swing Combo, a professional jazz septet which played extensively. Simultaneously, Rick was also touring Holland playing with symphony orchestras, and appearing as soloist in concerti by Bach, Rachmaninov, Beethoven and Mendelssohn.
In 1966, the Occasional Swing Combo shared a stage with Rein van der Broek's jazz combo The InCrowd, and van der Broek was impressed with the young keyboardist. He offered Rick the chance to join The InCrowd, and Rick accepted.
Soon after, they discovered there was another Dutch band with the name "The In Crowd" (derived from Ramsey Lewis
Ramsey Lewis
Ramsey Emmanuel Lewis, Jr. is an American jazz composer, pianist and radio personality. Ramsey Lewis has recorded over 80 albums and has received seven gold records and three Grammy Awards so far in his career.-Biography:...
's 1962 hit of the same name) so they changed their name to Ekseption
Ekseption
Ekseption was a Dutch progressive rock ensemble with changing membership, active from 1967 to 1989, growing out of the bands The Jokers and Incrowd. The group started out playing jazz, pop and R&B covers...
, a Dutch spelling of "exception". In 1968, Rick attended a Rotterdam concert by The Nice
The Nice
The Nice were an English progressive rock band from the 1960s, known for their blend of rock, jazz and classical music. Their debut album, The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack was released in 1967 to immediate acclaim. It is often considered the first progressive rock album...
, Keith Emerson's neo-classical rock trio, where they played a version of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos
Brandenburg concertos
The Brandenburg concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach are a collection of six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig, margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, in 1721 . They are widely regarded as among the finest musical compositions of the Baroque era...
. Van der Linden was inspired to combine his love of classical music with modern presentation (see main article Ekseption
Ekseption
Ekseption was a Dutch progressive rock ensemble with changing membership, active from 1967 to 1989, growing out of the bands The Jokers and Incrowd. The group started out playing jazz, pop and R&B covers...
).
Ekseption toured heavily, mainly through Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, from 1968 to 1974, and won critical acclaim. Rick left Ekseption in 1974 to form Trace, a smaller rock trio along the lines of Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Emerson, Lake & Palmer, also known as ELP, are an English progressive rock supergroup. They found success in the 1970s and sold over forty million albums and headlined large stadium concerts. The band consists of Keith Emerson , Greg Lake and Carl Palmer...
. In 1978, he returned to Ekseption for the first in a series of reunions, each less successful than the last. He also played with Mistral (1977–1980, with Robbie van Leeuwen
Robbie van Leeuwen
Robbie van Leeuwen is a Dutch musician who used to be the guitarist, sitarist, background vocalist and main songwriter for the Dutch bands The Motions, Shocking Blue and Galaxy-Lin. His most well-known compositions are Shocking Blue's most famous songs, Venus, which was an American no...
(ex-Shocking Blue
Shocking Blue
Shocking Blue was a Dutch rock band from The Hague, the Netherlands, formed in 1967. Their biggest hit, "Venus", went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1970, and the band had sold 13.5 million discs by 1973, but the group disbanded in 1974.-Members:...
)) and Cum Laude (1980–1989). He released several solo albums, most reworkings of classical music in the Ekseption style. He performed session work with artists such as Joachim Kuhn
Joachim Kühn
-Biography:Kühn was a musical prodigy and made his debut as a concert pianist, having studied classical piano and composition with Arthur Schmidt-Elsey. Influenced by his elder brother, clarinetist Rolf Kühn, he simultaneously got interested in jazz. In 1961 he became a professional jazz musician....
, Deep Purple
Deep Purple
Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in Hertford in 1968. Along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, they are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock, although some band members believe that their music cannot be categorised as belonging to any one genre...
, Phil Collins
Phil Collins
Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist....
, Vangelis
Vangelis
Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock and orchestral music, under the artist name Vangelis...
, Jack Lancaster
Jack Lancaster
Jack Lancaster is a British composer, record producer and musician.In the late 1960s, Lancaster co-founded the British rock group Blodwyn Pig with Jethro Tull guitarist Mick Abrahams...
and Brand X
Brand X
Brand X was a jazz fusion band active between 1975–1980 and 1992-1999. Noted members included Phil Collins , Percy Jones , John Goodsall and Robin Lumley ....
.
In 2005, Rick van der Linden was struck by a CVA
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
and was partly paralyzed as a result. He died on 22 January 2006 in Groningen, and was buried in Hoogeveen
Hoogeveen
Hoogeveen is a municipality and a town in the northeastern Netherlands.- Population centres :Elim, Fluitenberg, Hoogeveen and Noordscheschut, which still have the canals which used to be throughout the town...
.
Solo
- Plays Albinoni, Bach, Handel (1976)
- Night of Doom (soundtrack, 1977)
- GX1 (played entirely on the Yamaha GX1Yamaha GX1The Yamaha GX-1, first released as Electone GX-707 It's rumored that when Yamaha realized the model number shared the designation of Boeing 707 aircraft, they changed it to GX-1. Note the basic design of GX-1 followed the released in 1970., is an analog polyphonic synthesizer developed by Yamaha...
synthesizer, 1978) - Wild Connections (with Jack LancasterJack LancasterJack Lancaster is a British composer, record producer and musician.In the late 1960s, Lancaster co-founded the British rock group Blodwyn Pig with Jethro Tull guitarist Mick Abrahams...
, 1979) - Variations (with Cathalin Tercolea, 1979)
- Solo (1981)
- Norfolk Line (with Cathalin Tercolea, 1982)
- Old Friends, New Friends (1985)
- Rainbow Dubbel (1997)