Chris Walker

Chris Walker Biography

Chris has been associated with numerous productions across the UK and USA, West End and Broadway, as a Musical Director, Orchestrator and Dance Arranger. Shows include: Godspell, Oliver!, Side by Side by Sondheim, My Fair Lady, Tomfoolery, Me and My Girl, Cabaret, Follies, Hot Shoe Shuffle, The Secret Garden, Imagine This, Ragtime, Acorn Antiques and Lend Me A Tenor. He contributed the dance arrangements for the National Theatre and Cameron Mackintosh’s West End production of My Fair Lady and its highly successful UK and USA National Tour and provided orchestrations for a recording of The Likes of Us, the first show ever composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. Chris is also a prolific composer in his own right, has produced numerous cast recordings and has worked extensively for TV and film, providing orchestrations for the movies Shirley Valentine, Impromptu and Olympus Has Fallen.

He is looking forward to his role as Musical Director and working again with the Producer Michael Rose on the UK Premier of Sleepless, a Musical Romance when it opens at The Troubador Theatre in London in August 2020. He is also working on the orchestrations for a Cole Porter musical with RH Broadway. Other theatre credits include the orchestrations for the Christmas Production of The Producers at The Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester and the Menier Chocolate Factory’s production of Cy Coleman’s Barnum. He also orchestrated The Royal Exchange Theatre and The Nottingham Playhouse production of Sweet Charity as well as The Menier’s production starring Tamsin Outhwaite and its subsequent transfer to The Theatre Royal in the Haymarket.

Chris was also responsible for the orchestrations of the highly acclaimed production of Funny Girl starring Sheridan Smith which premiered at The Menier Chocolate Factory in London before transferring to The Savoy Theatre in the West End and continuing with a National Tour in the UK.

He provided the orchestrations and dance arrangements of the first ever stage adaptation of Irving Berlin’s Top Hat which toured the UK before transferring to the Aldwych Theatre in London. The show also ran in Sweden and Japan following its 2nd UK National tour. He wrote the orchestrations and dance arrangements for a revised production of Me and My Girl at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. In addition, Chris orchestrated a new version of The Secret Garden for the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh and its transfer to Toronto.

Chris has worked with the Regents’ Park Open Air Theatre on numerous occasions and provided the orchestrations for their productions, Into The Woods, Ragtime and The Sound of Music which received glowing reviews.

He arranged the orchestrations for the musical That Day We Sang (written by Victoria Wood) for The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester and was invited to re-orchestrate the score for the BBC2 Christmas drama adaptation starring Imelda Staunton and Michael Ball and produced by Hilary Bevan-Jones. Prior to this, he orchestrated Victoria Wood’s production of Acorn Antiques West End run at The Theatre Royal, Haymarket and subsequent UK Tour.

Other credits include his re-orchestration of the Cole Porter score for The Crucible Theatre’s production of Anything Goes and the subsequent UK tour for Stage Entertainment. In the same year he re-orchestrated the score for Adam Spiegel’s UK production of The Producers - based on Mel Brooks’ much loved Academy Award winning movie. He also provided the re-orchestration of ‘The Gumbie Cat’ for CATS at the London Palladium, the Paris production and the UK Tour. The show will start its next International Tour in April 2020.


He wrote the orchestrations and dance arrangements for the West End Production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which ran for over three and a half years at The London Palladium. The show also transferred to Broadway and continued with three highly successful National Tours of the UK. He has worked with the Olivier Award-winning star, Maria Friedman on her one-woman shows at festivals throughout Europe, at The Carlyle Café in New York and The Menier Chocolate Factory in London. Maria then turned her attentions to directing and they collaborated again on her production of High Society at the Old Vic and Stepping Out at the Theatre Royal, Bath after a short tour in the UK followed by a transfer to the Vauderville Theatre in the West End.

In addition, he wrote the compositions for Ray Cooney’s musical Twice Upon A Time which was first performed at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford before transferring to Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, Los Angeles. 

Chris was also the Musical Supervisor of Stage Entertainment’s production Der Schuh Des Manitu which ran for two years at the Theater des Westens in Berlin.


For more information please contact Francine Fletcher at Fletcher Associates
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