Rufus Wainwright

Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright is an American-born Canadian who is a songwriter, composer, and singer. 

When Rufus was three years old, his parents divorced. Then he and his mother moved to Montreal where he finished his education and learned how to play the piano when he was six. When he was thirteen years old Rufus started touring with his family that called themselves ‘’The McGarrigle Sisters and Family".  

During his teenage years, he identified himself as gay, and that didn’t cause problems with his family. This topic has become one that has not been much discussed in the family or in public. Rufus himself admitted that his parents could not come to terms with the fact that he was gay, and therefore tries not to raise this issue at all. 

His early career mainly consisted of him doing weekly shows in the Cafe of Sarajevo and also that he was on the Montreal Club circuit where he cut multiple demo tapes where Pierre Marchand produced his first album called Poses. The album has impressed his father who sent them to Lenny Waronker who was the executive of Dreamworks at the time which later signed Rufus to his label. Rufus in 1996 moved to New York and started performing regularly in the club Fez.  

Later he relocated to Los Angeles and began working on his first studio album and for that Waronker has paired him with Jon Brion. Wainwright recorded 56 songs in total with 62 of them being on rolls of tape. The sessions have cost $700,000. Overall the album did give Wainwright fame in terms of nominations since he got nominated for ‘’Gay & Lesbian American Music Awards’’ and including Album of the Year award with Pop Recording of the Year and Video of the Year and won for Best New Artist. His album was also recognized in the magazine ‘’Rolling Stone’’ as one of the best albums of that year.  

Some time passed, and Wainwright moved and has been living in the Chelsea Hotel for six months while working on the 2nd album. Eventually, on the 2nd of June 2001, he released his second album ‘’Poses’’ and like the previous album saw massive success in terms of critique. The album has reached the number 1 spot in the Top Heatseekers and peaked at position number 117 in the Billboard 200 Chart. Sadly it has not seen much of commercial success as it saw limited sales. Rufus started touring from 2001 throughout 2004 as well as headlining the 2001 and 2002 tour years to support the album. 

Wainwright's life hit a rough patch in the early 2000s though as he got addicted to crystal meth which has led to him temporarily losing his vision. Eventually, in 2002, he reached the peak of his addiction and at some point got to what he has described as ‘’The most Surreal week of his Life’’. During that week he described that he had done things from playing a cameo role on television to partying non-stop with George W. Bush's daughter Barbara. He even enjoyed a ‘’debauched evening’’ with his mother and Mariann Faithfull. After all of those events, he started experiencing hallucinations and decided that he would get himself rehabbed or he would go and live with his father. 

In 2003 Rufus produced and released a new full-length album ‘’Want One’’ and then a bit later he released ‘’Want Two’’, and 4 of the songs were released in ‘’Waiting for the One’’ by Dreamworks on November 16th. Later ‘’Want One’’ and ‘’Want Two’’ were repacked together as just ‘’Want’’ in November 2005 to coincide with his British Tour which also included some additional songs in the album like "Es Muß Sein" and "Velvet Curtain Rag" and "Chelsea Hotel No. 2" and "In With the Ladies". In 2007 Rufuse’s fifth album was released by Geffen/Dreamworks called ‘’Release the Stars’’ which  
Got second place in the UK charts and has debuted 23rd on the 200 Billboard.  

Next on the list were the two music videos that got released for the album ‘’Going to Town’’ for which the album got certified gold in the United Kingdom. After all of that, Rufus went on a tour that made him visit multiple different countries throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.  

In 2008 Rufus came up with a concept called Blackoutsabbath which meant living off the grid and an attempt at becoming more environmentally friendly. The fans would unplug their appliances and as said live off the grid. During his tour in 2007-2008, he wrote his first opera called Prima Donna which was meant to be played in an American Opera but due to the libretto being written in French the play has been rejected. Rufus had to find another staging area, and he managed to get his opera to be played in the Manchester International Festival at the Palace Theatre. The overall reception of the play was mixed, but it did manage to score an award being the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Musical/Opera.  

On November 9th, 2009 Wainright announced his sixth album named ‘’ All Days are Nights: Songs for LuLu’’ which aired on the 23rd of March in Canada than on the 5th of April in the U.K and on the 20th of April in the United States. 

Then later in December he and his family members decided to raise funds in the Royal Albert Hall to raise awareness of sarcoma which is a rare type of cancer to which they managed to gather 55 thousand dollars for the Kate McGarrigle Fund.  

In the late 2010s Rufus got engaged to his partner Jörn Weisbrodt and moved with him to Toronto, Ontario, and in 2011 he announced the birth of his first child which he had with childhood friend Lorca Cohen and his partner is a Deputy Dad. Wainwright recorded his seventh studio album with Mark Ronson, and he has described the new songs to be more "danceable" than his previous albums. 

His second opera,’’ Hadrian’’, premiered in Canadian Opera Company as their opening production in the 2018 mainstage season at the Four Seasons Centre, in Toronto, Ontario that was directed by a Canadian Director ‘’Peter Hinton’’ with the libretto written by a Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor. Wainwright launched a new version of his first opera, accompanied by a film directed by Francesco Vezzoli that featured Cindy Sherman as the Prima Donna. The finale was shot in Paris in the spring of 2015 and produced by Petite Maison Production before it premiered in Athens in September. 

On July 10th, Rufus’s 10th studio album, Unfollow the Rules, was released. The album overall was met with good reception upon release and has amassed positive critic reviews, with a score of 82 on Metacritic, which is the highest score he got on the site equal only to his 2001 LP Poses.