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

由 AI 翻译自 The Guardian · Animals

Rick Wakeman performs piano concert to 150 rescued moon bears in Vietnam | Animal welfare | The Guardian Skip to main content Skip to navigation Close dialogue 1 / 3 Next image Previous image Toggle caption Print subscriptions Newsletters Sign in US US edition UK edition Australia edition Europe edition International edition The Guardian - Back to home The Guardian News Opinion Sport Culture Lifestyle Show more Hide expanded menu News View all News US news US politics Midterms 2026 World news Climate crisis Middle East Ukraine US immigration Soccer Business Environment Tech Science Newsletters The Filter Wellness Opinion View all Opinion The Guardian view Columnists Letters Opinion videos Cartoons Sport View all Sport Soccer NFL Tennis MLB MLS NBA WNBA NHL F1 Golf Culture View all Culture Film Books Music Art & design TV & radio Stage Classical Games Design a better world Lifestyle View all Lifestyle The Filter Wellness Fashion Food Recipes Love & sex Home & garden Health & fitness Family Travel Money Search input google-search Search Support us Print subscriptions Newsletters Download the app Search jobs Digital Archive Guardian Licensing Live events About Us The Guardian app Video Podcasts Pictures Inside the Guardian Guardian Weekly Crosswords Wordiply Corrections Tips Search input google-search Search Search jobs Digital Archive Guardian Licensing Live events About Us Environment Climate crisis Wildlife Energy Pollution Green light Rick Wakeman at the piano at the bear sanctuary in Vietnam. Photograph: hson/Animals Asia View image in fullscreen Rick Wakeman at the piano at the bear sanctuary in Vietnam. Photograph: hson/Animals Asia Animal welfare Rick Wakeman performs piano concert to 150 rescued moon bears in Vietnam Former Yes musician plays at sanctuary to raise awareness of animals that remain stuck in cages at ‘bile farms’ Helena Horton Thu 24 Sep 2026 11.40 EDT Last modified on Thu 24 Sep 2026 13.12 EDT Share Prefer the Guardian on Google 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.” View image in fullscreen A moon bear at the bear sanctuary in Tam Dao national park, Vietnam. Photograph: Luong Thai Linh/EPA 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.” Rick Wakeman plays piano at bear sanctuary 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. 1:04 Rick Wakeman plays piano at bear sanctuary – video 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