Latest news with #RufusWainwright
eNCA
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- eNCA
Maleh to perform at this year's Mayibuye iAfrika Concert
JOHANNESBURG - The third edition of the Mayibuye iAfrika Concert will take place at the Joburg Theatre this weekend. READ | Rufus Wainwright's 'Dream Requiem' explores catastrophe and redemption The concert serves as a musical homage to South Africa's diverse cultural legacy that reflects the essence of ubuntu. This year's edition is a call to action for the youth as Youth Month festivities wrap up. Award winning afro-soul singer and songwriter Maleh unpacks more details with eNCA.
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
The Music Quiz: Rufus Wainwright once played himself an episode of which classic TV comedy?
Complete the title of Daniel Lanois's 1993 album: For the Beauty of.... Ramona Fiona Simona Wynona In 2002, Rufus Wainwright played himself episode of which popular British TV comedy? Which track off Arcade Fire's Neon Bible (2007) was performed by Peter Gabriel on his 2010 covers album, Scratch My Back? My Body Is a Cage Intervention Black Mirror Keep the Car Running What is Neil Young's middle name? Claude Cyril Bartholomew Percival Emm Gryner covers which Undertones tune on her 2005 album, Songs of Love and Death? Teenage Kicks Julie Ocean My Perfect Cousin Wednesday Week In Alanis Morissette's Your House, the song's character plays a CD by Canadian artist...? Leonard Cohen Joni Mitchell Neil Young Jane Siberry Whites Off Earth Now, the 1986 debut album by Cowboy Junkies, features how many exclamation marks? ! !! !!! !!!! What is the title of Leonard Cohen's first poetry collection? The Spice-Box of Earth Let Us Compare Mythologies Parasites of Heaven Flowers for Hitler What's missing from the title of Joni Mitchell's The [Blank] Veils of Ardor? Pretty Velvety Creamy Silky Which iconic Canadian is named in Lynyrd Skynyrd's song Sweet Home Alabama? Robbie Robertson Joni Mitchell Gordon Lightfoot Neil Young
New Statesman
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
Martha Wainwright, in her own right
'Though I was a 'daughter of' twice over, doors seemed closed to me,' writes Martha Wainwright in her 2022 memoir Stories I Might Regret Telling You, recalling the difficulty she had getting her music career off the ground in the late Nineties. Wainwright – the daughter of the American songwriter Loudon Wainwright III and the Canadian folk artist Kate McGarrigle, and the younger sister of the singer and composer Rufus Wainwright – was born into a family renowned for its musicality. Yet far from the ease with which some might have expected her to glide into stardom, Wainwright found these associations worked against her. This was in 'stark contrast to the attention paid to the 'sons of' musical stars', she writes, naming 'all those boys' she hung out with in New York and Los Angeles: Teddy Thompson (son of Richard and Linda), Sean Lennon (son of John and Yoko), Chris Stills (son of Stephen), Harper Simon (son of Paul). Two decades on from that time, performing at London's Union Chapel in late May to mark the 20th anniversary of her self-titled debut album, Wainwright, now 49, is far from over this early push-back. After opening her set with 'Far Away', on which her voice retains the almost unbelievable balance of childish twee and adult gravel captured on the original recording, and 'GPT', named after Brooklyn's Greenpoint Tavern bar, she explains why it took her the best part of a decade finally to release this album in 2005. 'There was already a lot of Wainwrights in the room, and a couple of cute McGarrigles,' she says to laughs from the crowd – so the industry big shots weren't much bothered by her raw, untethered songs. How could she ever change that? Martha Gabrielle Wainwright was born in New York State in 1976. Her parents were living in Woodstock at the time, but they soon separated, and Martha and Rufus moved with their mother to her native Montreal, where they grew up in a bohemian, folkish family. Wainwright is often asked if her parents 'made' her do music, she writes in her memoir, and the answer is yes. 'But I liked it and I wanted the attention and fun of performing. I was a misfit, and often unhappy, but singing and playing made me feel good.' But she doesn't consider herself 'naturally gifted. I don't hear music in my head… I get intimidated.' No wonder, given her relatives. Loudon Wainwright (now 78) is a Grammy Award-winning songwriter of tracks that have become classics of Americana, including 'The Swimming Song' and 'Motel Blues'. Meanwhile Kate and her sister Anna McGarrigle (Kate died in 2010; Anna still lives in Montreal) are Canadian folk royalty: their self-titled 1976 record was Melody Maker's 'best record of the year', while The McGarrigle Hour (1998, featuring Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt) remains a stalwart of the modern folk canon. This musical prowess continued into the next generation: Rufus Wainwright signed to DreamWorks Records when he was 22, had hundreds of thousands of dollars poured into his 'artist development' and is now a household name for his baroque pop, as well as his soundtrack and opera work. 'Growing up, I never played the piano – how could I with my brother wailing away on it day and night?' Wainwright writes. Numerous aunts and cousins of the Wainwright-McGarrigle clan are musicians too. At the Union Chapel, Martha's cousin Lily Lanken (Anna's daughter) sings backing vocals. But it wasn't just that her family all wrote and played songs; they wrote and played songs about each other – and no one was more candid than Loudon. Martha Wainwright's father was absent for much of her childhood, 'almost denying my existence', she writes. She portrays a man who instead of caring for his family wrote songs about them. When she was 14 and he was 44, Martha was sent to live with Loudon in New York City for 'a year of discontent'. His song 'Hitting You' is based on that year. Over lively guitar he recalls hitting Martha in the car when she was much younger, moving on to how he felt the need to hit her again: 'These days things are awful between me and you/All we do is argue like two people who are through/I blame you, your friends, your school, your mother, and MTV/Last night I almost hit you/That blame belongs to me.' It's brutal. A decade later, Wainwright learnt that another of her father's songs, 'I'd Rather Be Lonely' – which she'd always thought was 'a bit stupid and mean-spirited', and probably about a girlfriend – was actually about that same year with her. She was in the crowd at a Loudon Wainwright concert, having opened for him, when he introduced the next song as being about his daughter, and proceeded to sing: 'You're still living here with me, I'd rather be lonely/All the time I look around/For excuses to leave town/Everybody wants somebody, but I'd rather be lonely.' It's no wonder, then, that when Wainwright came to write, her songs burst out with a wily, frenetic energy, as though charged with resentment for her father's tunes and insistent on making their own mark. Many of the tracks from Martha Wainwright use unusual guitar tunings – 'what I thought were genius tunings,' she says at the Union Chapel, 'now it turns out they're just a pain in the ass' – a lot of piano, and rickety drums. On stage she introduces 'Ball and Chain' as a song of 'desperation, about wanting to be loved and desired', before giving in to its jangling intensity, anchored by her five-piece band. On the fan favourite 'Factory' she sings, 'These are not my people/I should never have come here,' with ferocity. Yet as the song goes on, her vocals, elsewhere hard edged, morph into a beautiful sloppiness, her vowels soft around these words as her body, too, finds an elastic effect, her legs bending and slinking below her guitar. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe If Wainwright's assertion of being withheld the full benefits of nepotism because of her gender is hard to swallow for those of us who will never have the luxury of benefiting from nepotism whatsoever, another of her declarations is undeniable: that unlike Loudon and Rufus, her career has been held back by motherhood. Wainwright is the mother of two teenage boys, their father her ex-husband and former producer Brad Albetta, who comes off particularly badly in the memoir. In London she plays an unreleased track, singing: 'I chose my children over my career/But I still have to feed them and they are dear/And that is why we are here tonight.' Further into the song, she reflects: 'I sound more like my father every day/But I can't call him on Father's Day.' She is being at least partially comedic, the song a wink to the audience who know exactly who her father is – and that he writes about her too. All of this is, of course, part of the appeal. 'She's got her father's wit,' one woman behind me whispers, approvingly. But the song's point is potent: Wainwright is one of many women whose careers have not run as ascendant a course as they might have had they not paused to have children. That hits harder for Wainwright, given her absent father continued to garner renown as a prolific songwriter. Although her family patter occasionally feels like theatrical shtick, it ultimately lends a melancholia to Wainwright's performance, reinforcing her belief that she hasn't found proper success in the context of her family name. 'In so many ways, my career is a failure,' she writes in her memoir. It's immensely sad, because these songs are fantastic. They are jagged, raucous, yet introspective things, and live, her unburdened stage presence and full-bodied guitar-playing makes them all the wilder. Martha Wainwright was acclaimed upon its release 20 years ago, but never placed higher than 63 in the UK charts, and 43 in the US. The six albums she has released since then have been similarly well received by critics without breaking through into the mainstream. But it is a feat to sell out a 900-capacity venue, in a country that is not your own, playing a record that's two decades old. Wainwright's cult listeners don't care that Rufus isn't there to join her on her rendition of her brother's song 'Dinner at Eight' (about Loudon, of course) – yet she still sounds apologetic when she tells them so. They do, however, care for the single encore track, the rambunctious 'Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole', first released on an EP in 2005, included on the debut record, and now performed by Wainwright solo on acoustic guitar. It's the song that made her name, although she doesn't play it often any more. It is typically – and wrongly – described as a song about Loudon. Wainwright admits she once told a journalist it was about her father, which probably didn't help the matter. But really it is about the industry, about 'getting the short end of the stick' in her career, she writes – being that 'daughter of' rather than 'son of'. 'I will not pretend/I will not put on a smile/I will not say I'm all right for you/When all I wanted was to be good/To do everything in truth,' she sings, boldly and then softly. Martha Wainwright will always be a Wainwright. It is up to her whether she chooses to write like one. [See also: Keir Starmer's grooming gang cowardice] Related
Kuwait Times
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Kuwait Times
Rufus Wainwright's ‘Dream Requiem' explores catastrophe and redemption
The historic Mount Tambora volcanic eruption spewed so much ash and debris that it triggered a 'year without summer' and the apocalypse seemed nigh - an apt parallel to our own chaotic existence, says the eclectic musician Rufus Wainwright. The artist's ambitious modern-day requiem, which draws inspiration from the 19th-century catastrophe as well as the Requiem Mass, will premiere stateside on Sunday in Los Angeles, with narration by the actor and activist Jane Fonda. The Canadian-American Wainwright composed 'Dream Requiem' as the globe was picking up the pieces after the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, and turned to Lord Byron's poem 'Darkness' which is centered on the fear and disarray that followed the 1815 Mount Tambora eruption. The artist, best known for his distinct theatrical pop, has focused more on opera in recent years and said the poem is all the more prescient given the looming threat of climate cataclysm, as well as our tumultuous contemporary politics. US-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer Rufus Wainwright poses during a photo session at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. 'In this day and age, it's a similar kind of intense sense of doom,' Wainwright told AFP in an interview ahead of the Los Angeles show. 'I think we're a little less misguided than they were back then, but who knows what the future holds?' Wainwright's global premiere of 'Dream Requiem' was at the Auditorium de Radio France in Paris last summer, with Meryl Streep narrating and featuring soprano Anna Prohaska. A recording of the work is available from Warner Classics. Wainwright said Fonda's participation in the upcoming performance with the Los Angeles Master Chorale lends additional intensity to the piece, given her long history of activism and her special emphasis in recent years on climate change. 'She's one of the great heroines,' he said of the storied 87-year-old film star. 'Certainly with what America has been through in the last couple of months, I think it'll be very powerful.' And that the show's US premiere comes mere months after deadly wildfires ravaged parts of Los Angeles adds yet another layer, he said. Soprano Liv Redpath (left) sings while US conductor Grant Gershon (right) directs the LA Master Chorale during a rehearsal of Rifus Wainwright's "Dream Requiem". Wainwright has written two classical operas, set Shakespearean sonnets to song and produced a tribute concert to Judy Garland in addition to releasing a string of pop albums. He has a particular penchant for Giuseppe Verdi: 'When I was 13, I listened to Verdi's Requiem from top to tail, and it was like I'd been infected by a virus,' he said. Musical settings of the Catholic Requiem Mass are themselves known as requiems; Verdi's tells of the death-fearing living who seek deliverance. 'I've always been more at ease, you know, communicating dread and foreboding,' the 51-year-old Wainwright said. But it's not all gloom, he added: 'A few weeks after I premiered it, and I had some distance from it, I realized, oh no, there is hope. There is sort of this little glimmer of life.' — AFP 'Redemption and forgiveness' go hand in hand with the dread, and 'I like to maintain some modicum of hope,' Wainwright said. 'Hopefully this is sort of like a resurrection, shall we say, of both that feeling of dread -- but also that need to face the music and deal with the problem at hand.'--AFP
eNCA
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- eNCA
Rufus Wainwright's 'Dream Requiem' explores catastrophe and redemption
LOS ANGELES - The historic Mount Tambora volcanic eruption spewed so much ash and debris that it triggered a "year without summer" and the apocalypse seemed nigh -- an apt parallel to our own chaotic existence, says the eclectic musician Rufus Wainwright. The artist's ambitious modern-day requiem, which draws inspiration from the 19th-century catastrophe as well as the Requiem Mass, will premiere stateside on Sunday in Los Angeles, with narration by the actor and activist Jane Fonda. The Canadian-American Wainwright composed "Dream Requiem" as the globe was picking up the pieces after the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, and turned to Lord Byron's poem "Darkness" which is centred on the fear and disarray that followed the 1815 Mount Tambora eruption. The artist, best known for his distinct theatrical pop, has focused more on opera in recent years and said the poem is all the more prescient given the looming threat of climate cataclysm, as well as our tumultuous contemporary politics. "In this day and age, it's a similar kind of intense sense of doom," Wainwright told AFP in an interview ahead of the Los Angeles show. "I think we're a little less misguided than they were back then, but who knows what the future holds?" Wainwright's global premiere of "Dream Requiem" was at the Auditorium de Radio France in Paris last summer, with Meryl Streep narrating and featuring soprano Anna Prohaska. A recording of the work is available from Warner Classics. Wainwright said Fonda's participation in the upcoming performance with the Los Angeles Master Chorale lends additional intensity to the piece, given her long history of activism and her special emphasis in recent years on climate change.
