Rick Wakeman announces brand new studio album

Prog legend Rick Wakeman has announced that he will release a brand new studio album recorded with his English Rock Ensemble band.

A Gallery Of The Imagination, the follow-up to 2020's The Red Planet, will be released through Madfish/Snapper on February 24.

The new album is another conceptual affair, the initial idea stemming from Wakeman's first piano teacher, Mrs Symes, with whom he studied from the age five until his time at the Royal College of Music. She taught him that music was like painting pictures: that when you play, you are painting pictures through music, an important lesson that Wakeman never forgot.

“One of my great loves is going to museums and art galleries and seeing all the different types of art, so I thought, why not a music gallery," Wakeman says. "A Gallery Of The Imagination? People can paint their own mind pictures to the different types of music that are on the album. It is very diverse and for me it works very well because the concept holds it all together."

One of the ideas Wakeman would like to pursue around album release is for listeners to draw or paint their own pictures or even create sculptures to the music which, in turn, could be displayed.

"It is a very tactile album” he explains. “I’d like to feel that people can actually touch the music.”

Joining Wakeman on A Gallery Of The Imagination are bassist Lee Pomeroy, guitarist Dave Colquhoun, drummer Ash Soan and on vocals Hayley Sanderson, famous for her work as a vocalist on Strictly Come Dancing.

The album has been produced by Wakeman and Erik Jordan and mastered by Simon Heyworth at Super Audio Mastering.You can view the artwork and tracklisting below.

Pre-order A Gallery Of The Imagination.

Rick Wakeman: A Gallery Of The Imagination
1. Hidden Depths
2. The Man In The Moon
3. A Mirage in the Clouds
4. The Creek
5. My Moonlight Dream
6. Only When I Cry
7. Cuban Carnival
8. Just A Memory
9. The Dinner Party
10. A Day Spent On The Pier
11. The Visitation
12. The Eyes of a Child

Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.