Music legend Rick Wakeman has revealed he was left unable to walk or do anything for a year after brain surgery to treat Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH), the same condition fellow icon Billy Joel is currently battling.
Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk ahead of debuting a new work at Starmus VIII in Tenerife to mark the 10th anniversary of the Stephen Hawking medal, he admitted he would have died without the treatment in 2025.
Recovery and the Bears Concert
"I was really quite ill. I developed Hydrocephalus and had to have brain surgery. It's not very pleasant," he reflected. "They stick things in your head, and I couldn't walk. I was basically, I was recuperating for a year.
"The alternative is you die. But I couldn't walk. I couldn't do anything, and my brain stopped working," he said.
Now looking fit and healthy, he explained the illness had forced him to put plans on hold to play an extraordinary concert to an audience of more than 150 rescued bears at Tam Dao National Park in Vietnam. He finally got to fulfill that ambition on September 24 this year.
"It wasn't any form of stunt," he said. "It was something that I wanted to do, but also the aim was to get the bears in bile farms freed. And the government and dignitaries have said there are still 125 bears in cages trapped that need to get out.
"What we did down there, the dignitaries who were fantastic said: 'By the end of the year, you'll be able to get every bear out'," he smiled proudly.
Echoes From Black Holes
Since his recovery, he has also spent months composing a piece called Echoes From Black Holes, which he performed for the one and only time to standing ovations on the second night of Starmus in Tenerife. Festival co-founder Brian May sat in the front row to watch his show and was the first to jump to his feet applauding at the end.
Speaking just hours before taking to the stage, Rick said: "It's a bizarre concept, and I mean, one of the things that's a bit of a shame is that it gets played once tomorrow night and that's it.
"If there's any other astrophysicists' conventions around the world, they might go: 'Do you want to come and do it?' That would be really nice. But it's very different," he said.
"It's an idea that came from Garik Israelian. I was introduced to him a few years ago by Brian May, and who introduced me to him and Stephen Hawking, and then I became a part of Starmus.
"Garrick called me last year and said: 'I have an idea for something for you to do. I have all of Stephen Hawking's lectures on black holes. I think I can sectionalise the lecture on black holes into 10 segments telling the story. I think there should be some music over maybe a small amount of the first bit of narration, then a piece of music, then more narration, then a piece of music, all with fantastic visuals.'"
Rick admits he was initially incredulous, but after thinking about it he decided to treat it like a movie score, and he worked with the festival's Musical and Artistic Director Stuart Morley on the piece.
"It's about an hour long of music and I tried to incorporate as many different kinds of music as I could within each of the sections. So each section has its own identity, but hopefully flows.
"Stuart came up to my house, into my studio, and we went through everything and worked on the orchestrations. The first time I heard it was two days ago when we had a rehearsal, and I was thrilled to bits. I thought it worked really, really, really well."
He says he found the process "thoroughly enjoyable," adding: "I loved working with Stuart Morley and Garik. It was tremendous.
"It's been a really fun project to do. Very, very different. And I still don't know what black holes are," he laughed.
