Rick Wakeman

Rick Wakeman has announced a UK tour in support of his Piano Portraits album, which was released in January via Write Notes.

The record was inspired by the reaction to his performance of David Bowie’s Life On Mars on BBC Radio 2, and features a total of 15 tracks, including Stairway To Heaven, Space Oddity, Eleanor Rigby and Amazing Grace.

Speaking about the album, Wakeman previously said: 'I’ve been wanting to do a piano album for years and I spent quite a bit of time looking at everything from straight classical pieces to stuff that I’d played on in the past like Morning Has Broken and Life On Mars.

Plus pieces of music that I thought would work really well like Stairway To Heaven and classics like Clair De Lune. Nearly all of the tracks have a memory for me somewhere down the line and it just seemed to work.'

On the live dates titled Piano Portraits In Concert, the shows will feature 'at least eight of the pieces on the album, plus other musical surprises, and all will be interspersed with hilarious anecdotes from this well-known and accomplished raconteur'.