Rick Wakeman to release new piano album, 'Melancholia'

Posted By: Staff
September 4, 2025 @ 4:00 pm
Music News

Rick Wakeman, English keyboardist and composer best known as a member of the progressive rock band Yes, performs live with Rick Wakeman and the English Rock Ensemble at Fairport’s Cropredy Convention. (Photo by Dawn Fletcher-Park/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Former Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman is back with a new album.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer is set to release Melancholia on Oct. 17. It will be the third in a series of solo piano albums he launched in 2017 with Piano Portraits, followed by 2018’s Piano Odyssey.

A press release for the album describes it as “the most personal, introspective, and perhaps profound music of Rick’s storied career.”

Wakeman adds that the album, recorded on a Steinway Model D, is “one of the most meaningful suites of piano music I have ever done.”

Although the album’s title hints at sadness, the description notes that songs on the album “are neither bleak or morose,” adding, “They are generous in spirit, filled with moments of light and resolve, reflecting a mind that has learned to make peace with melancholy – not to escape it, but to transmute it.”

Melancholia will be released on CD, and on black and silver vinyl. It is available for preorder now.