Rick Wakeman performs piano concert to 150 rescued moon bears in Vietnam

Rick Wakeman has played to all kinds of people around the globe, but he has now performed to an audience he had never encountered before – an enclosure of 150 bears.

The former Yes musician, who has gone on to have a prolific solo career, played the piano at a Vietnamese bear sanctuary.

“Before you ask, I won’t be playing the teddy bear’s picnic,” he joked ahead of the performance. Wakeman, who is a supporter of animal welfare causes and has rescue dogs and cats of his own, is conducting the concert to raise awareness of moon bears kept in cruel conditions for the extraction of their bile.

He said he was a bit worried about how hot it is going to be. “You know the heatwave we had in England? It’s double that,” he said. “They offered to rig up a fan for me, but I figured that will just blow more hot air around.”

His concert was performed live on a Yamaha grand piano positioned in Animals Asia’s bear sanctuary in the Tam Dao national park, and Wakeman had written some new compositions especially for rescued bears.

Asked whether the bears would enjoy the music, he said: “They’ve not got much choice, really. It’s a well-known fact that all animals react to music, especially gentle melodic music. So what I am going to do is piano music that is melodic, and I can only hope that they will come up to the perimeter of the sanctuary and have a listen.”

Wakeman has been sponsoring rescue bears since 2016 and recently adopted a new one: “He’s only 20 months old, a big fella, I went to see him today. He came out right to the edge and stood on his back legs and just stared at me, it was brilliant.”

Bile is extracted from bears for traditional Chinese medicine by putting a needle into their gall bladder and drawing it out. The bears are kept in poor conditions in countries including China and in Vietnam, where it has just been banned, but where some bears are still in captivity in cramped enclosures. It is the fourth-biggest market in the illegal wildlife trade in east Asia, resulting in a dramatic decline in the Asiatic black bear populations in Vietnam, with nearly a third of their numbers lost around the world in just 30 years.

Of the sanctuary, which he has been visiting this week, Wakeman said: “To see the bears be rehabilitated, having a life they never had before, some have never put their feet on grass before. They are so wonderful, that we can do such horrendous things to animals is beyond belief. Before this, they were chained in cages sometimes for 10 or 20 years in conditions where they couldn’t even turn around.”

He is playing to raise awareness for the bears still stuck in cages in Vietnam and to urge the government to get them released: “We have 150 bears at the sanctuary, but there are 125 bears left in cages in the old bear bile farms, and there are four dying a month. We have to get them out quick and into the sanctuary.”

He treats his rescue dogs and cats to music back at home in Suffolk. “I had one cat who used to jump on the grand piano, and if I stopped playing he would put his paw in the strings and rattle them until I played again. I know if my dogs don’t like it, they will get up and walk out, and my cats don’t like metal, grunge or rap. They want a melody.”

Wakeman spends hours watching the bears. “If you see these bears it is hard to put into words, they are almost human the way they look at you,” he said. “If you see them, you can’t help but be moved. They aren’t tame but they are very safe, very happy, they play, they romp. I witnessed two today jumping in a bubble bath and playing. They’ve got a life back.”

Dr Jill Robinson, the founder and CEO of Animals Asia, said: “We are beyond blessed to have Rick’s support for Animals Asia and the bears. His love for them is immeasurable and can be heard in the beautifully haunting music he has written for them. We’re all so excited to hear his performance in the open air at our sanctuary in the stunning setting of Tam Dao national park. I can’t wait to see how the bears respond.”

Wakeman added: “I hope they lay down and have a listen, that would make my day. I would have a big grin on my face.”