#011 - Rufus Wainwright

Praised by the New York Times for his “genuine originality,” Rufus Wainwright has established himself as one of the great male vocalists and songwriters of his generation. The New York-born, Montreal-raised singer songwriter has released countless studio albums, three DVDs, and three live albums, including the fantastic Grammy nominated Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall, which captured his celebrated Judy Garland tribute performance at the London Palladium in 2007, and the album Release The Stars which went Gold in Canada and the UK. His new album Unfollow the Rules – his ninth with original material — was released on 10 July 2020. Wainwright has received Juno Awards for Best Alternative Album in 1999 and 2002 for Rufus Wainwright and Poses, respectively, and nominations for his albums Want Two (2005)and Release the Stars (2008). He was nominated for Songwriter of the Year in 2008 for his Release the Stars album. He also composed the original music for choreographer Stephen Petronio’s work BLOOM which has toured across the country. Musically Rufus has collaborated with artists including Elton John, David Byrne, Boy George, Joni Mitchell, Pet Shop Boys and producer Mark Ronson among others. He collaborated on the title track of Robbie Williams’ latest album, Swings Both Ways, which was co-written with renowned musician and producer Guy Chambers and sung as a duet between Rufus and Robbie. In addition to being a celebrated contemporary pop singer, Rufus has made a name for himself in the classical world. His much acclaimed first opera, titled Prima Donna, premiered at the Manchester International Festival in July 2009. The opera was subsequently performed in London at Sadler’s Wells in April 2010, in Toronto at the Luminato Festival in June 2010 and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House in February 2012. Now fully established as a composer of operas, Rufus was commissioned by the Canadian Opera Company to write his second opera based on the story of the Roman Emperor Hadrian and Antinous. The new opera, Hadrian, premiered in Toronto on October 13, 2018. The music for the podcast is Twiggy's version of "Waterloo Sunset" by the Kinks and can be found on Apple Music at this link https://music.apple.com/gb/album/romantically-yours/693460953 If you’ve enjoyed listening to “Tea With Twiggy” please give take a moment to give us a lovely 5 STAR rating on Apple Podcasts. It really helps other people to find the show.If you haven’t done so already please subscribe to this podcast so you auto-magically get the next episodes for free and do tell all your friends and family about it too. If you want to connect with me I’d love to hear from you. You can find me on Twitter @Twiggy Or you can find me on Instagram @Twiggy Lawson My thanks go to all the people that have helped this podcast happen: ● Many thanks to James Carrol and all the team at Northbank Talent Management ● Thanks to all the team at Stripped Media including Ben Williams, who edits the show, my producer Kobi Omenaka and Executive Producers Tom Whalley and Dave Corkery If you want to know more about this podcast and other produced by Stripped Media please visit www.Stripped.media or email [email protected] to find out! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices