Music legend Rick Wakeman has revealed that he was left unable to walk or do anything for a year after undergoing brain surgery to treat Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH), the same condition that fellow musician Billy Joel is currently battling.
Speaking ahead of premiering a new piece at Starmus VIII in Tenerife, Wakeman admitted that without the treatment in 2025, he would have died.
Recovery and postponed concert
Wakeman told the Express: "I was really quite ill. I developed Hydrocephalus and had to have brain surgery. It's not very pleasant. They stick things in your head, and I couldn't walk. I was basically, I was recuperating for a year."
He added: "The alternative is you die. But I couldn't walk. I couldn't do anything, and my brain stopped working."
The illness forced him to postpone plans to perform a concert for an audience of over 150 rescued bears at Tam Dao National Park in Vietnam. He finally realised this ambition on September 24 this year.
"It wasn't any form of stunt," he clarified. "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."
He added: "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'."
Starmus performance and composition
Since his recovery, Wakeman has 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 before taking to the stage, Wakeman 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."
He explained that the idea came from Garik Israelian, who he was introduced to by Brian May a few years ago, along with Stephen Hawking, which led to his involvement with Starmus.
Wakeman noted that Israelian approached him with the concept of sectionalising Stephen Hawking's lectures on black holes into 10 segments, with music and narration.
Collaborating with the festival's Musical and Artistic Director Stuart Morley, Wakeman approached the composition like a film score, incorporating various musical styles across the hour-long piece.
"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 said.
Wakeman described the process as "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 chuckled.
