Release the Stars

Background:

“Why be in music, why write songs if you can't use them to explore life or an idealized vision of life? I believe a lot of our lives are spent asleep and what I've been trying to do is hold on to those moments when a little spark cuts through the fog and nudges you.” Rufus Wainwright

Canadian-American singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright has released the albums "Rufus Wainwright" (1998), "Poses" (2001), "Want One" (2003), "Want Two" (2004), "Release the Stars" (2007) and "Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall" (2007). The albums spawned such singles as "April Fools" (1998), "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" (2001), "California" (2001), "Across the Universe" (2002), "Going to a Town" (2007) and "Rules and Regulations" (2007). He also released "Waiting For A Want" (2004), "Alright, Already: Live in Montréal" (2005) and "Tiergarten" (2007).

Rufus has also appeared in the films "Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller" (1988), "The Aviator" (2004) and "Heights" (2005) and contributed songs for such films as "Brokeback Mountain" (2005), "I Am Sam" (2001), "Moulin Rouge!" (2001), "Shrek" (2005), "Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man" (2005) and "Meet the Robinsons" (2007).

A big fan of opera, the 5' 11" performer’s first opera, "Prima Donna," has been commissioned by Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb.

The Wainwright Clan

Childhood and Family:

Born in Rhinebeck, New York, on July 22, 1973, Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright grew up in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is the son of Scotch-Irish American songwriter, folk singer, humorist and actor Loudon Wainwright III and French-Canadian folk music singer-songwriter Kate McGarrigle. His younger sister is folk-pop singer Martha Wainwright and his aunt is Canadian folk music singer/songwriter Anna McGarrigle.

Following his parents' divorce when he was 4 years old, Rufus was raised by his mother in Montreal. In his early teens, Rufus began touring with the family ensemble, an act billed as “The McGarrigle Sisters and Family.”

Rufus attended high school at the prestigious Millbrook School in upstate New York. A big fan of opera, Rufus counts the Metropolitan Opera House as one of his favorite places in New York. He once lived in New York's famous Chelsea Hotel for six months, during which time he wrote most of his second album, “Poses” (2001).

At his father's insistence, Rufus, who has played the piano since the age of 6, entered McGill University to study classical and modern piano. He later left the school before graduation to pursue a professional music career.

Rufus revealed he was gay while still a teenager. His longtime companion is Jörg Weisbrodt, a German concert manager for the Berlin State Opera.

In the early 2000s, Rufus became addicted to crystal meth and temporarily lost his vision as a result. After seeking guidance from his friend Elton John, Rufus checked himself in rehab at the Hazelden Foundation in Minnesota.

Rufus Does Judy

Career:

After dropping out of McGill University, Rufus Wainwright began performing at Montreal night clubs. He then cut a series of demos with producer Pierre Marchand, and thanks to his family connections, the demos eventually came into the hands of record executive Lenny Waronker, who had just established the music production wing of DreamWorks Studios.

Rufus was signed with the label and subsequently moved to New York City in the spring of 1996, where he collected a loyal local audience while performing at Club Fez. That fall, he relocated to Los Angeles to work on his self titled debut album that would be released during the spring of 1998.

“Everything I do, I feel is genius. Whether it is or it isn't.” Rufus Wainwright

In the summer, Rufus toured with Sean Lennon before kicking off his first headline tour at Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey, on March 1, 1999. In late 1998, he appeared in a Gap commercial directed by Phil Harder, performing Frank Loesser's "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" He also contributed the song "Instant Pleasure" for the soundtrack of the comedy film "Big Daddy" (1999; starring Adam Sandler).

"Poses," Rufus' sophomore effort, hit the music stores on June 5, 2001. The album spun off the singles "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" and "California." One of the album's tracks, "One Man Guy," was written and originally performed by his father, Loudon Wainwright III. It also includes the bonus track "Across The Universe," a Lennon/McCartney song that Rufus recorded for the dramatic film “I Am Sam” (2001; starring Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Dakota Fanning).

"After I wrote 'Poses,' I knew I had a record. I realized that song would be the 'anchor,' a lot of the album's material springs from it. I was writing about things in my life as they were happening, which is why I recorded a lot of the songs pretty soon after they were written. I was tackling more personal subject matter this time." Rufus Wainwright

Rufus also contributed the track "Complainte de la Butte" for Baz Luhrmann's Oscar-winning musical film "Moulin Rouge" (2001; starring Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman), the song "Hallelujah" for the Academy Award-winning and Golden Globe-nominated animated feature "Shrek' (2001), and the number "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" for Ben Stiller's comedy movie "Zoolander" (2001). He also played a cameo role in the U.K. comedy television program "Absolutely Fabulous.”

After battling his crystal meth addiction, Rufus released his third album, "Want One," on September 23, 2003, and its first single, "I Don't Know What It Is," was released on July 26, 2004. The album was produced by Marius De Vries and featured guest vocals from his sister Martha Wainwright, Joan Wasser of the band “Joan As Police Woman,” Teddy Thompson, and Linda Thompson, as well as a banjo solo in "14th Street" by Rufus' mother Kate McGarrigle. The second part of the album and Rufus' fourth album, "Want Two," was released the following year. Four of the tracks on the album were released in the summer of 2004 as the EP “Waiting For A Want” on iTunes. He later repackaged "Want One" and "Want Two" as one album with two bonus tracks. He recorded his second EP, "Alright, Already: Live in Montréal" on March 15, 2005. It contains six live tracks recorded during a snowstorm in Montreal.

During this time, Rufus contributed songs to the Showtime TV series "The L Word" and the films "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason" (2004), "The Aviator" (2004), "Brokeback Mountain" (2005), "Prime" (2005), "Hell" (2006), "Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man" (2006), "The Last Kiss" (2006), and "The History Boys" (2006).

On May 15, 2007, Rufus released his fifth studio album, "Release the Stars," which yielded the singles "Going to a Town" and "Rules and Regulations." Co-produced by Rufus and Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant, the album became Rufus' highest debut chart position to date in the U.S., where it debuted at #23 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and sold about 24,000 copies in its first week. Rufus subsequently embarked on a tour to promote the album in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, and finished on February 14, 2008, with a final concert at the Radio City Music Hall in New York.

He later explained about the album "Release the Stars," “The album is dedicated to my mother, who during this whole process had a rather serious operation. That brought home a real sense of urgency about what I want to accomplish. There are feelings around us all the time that we never come into contact with until there is a traumatic experience. I went to rehab before ‘Want One’ and I had this kind of personal inventory situation where I had to recreate myself, go through all these different levels of reconstruction, and that was large, arduous, intense and dramatic. But once my mom had that operation, the other thing looked like a mole hill. The moment something happens to one you love, it’s twenty times more intense. You experience pain and enlightenment on a much vaster scale.”

Rufus released a digital EP called "Tiergarten" on October 29, 2007, under the Geffen label. It contained one track, "Supermayer Lost in Tiergarten," a remix of "Tiergarten" from his album “Release the Stars” that was also featured as a single in limited vinyl release (500 copies total).

On December 4, 2007, Rufus' sixth album, "Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall," a live recording of his June 2006 tribute concert to Judy Garland, was released by Geffen Records. At the same time, he released "Rufus! Rufus! Rufus! Does Judy! Judy! Judy!: Live From the London Palladium," a DVD release of Rufus' tribute concert to Judy Garland recorded in London during February 2007.

Rufus also contributed the songs "Another Believer" and "The Motion Waltz (Emotional Commotion)" for the 2007 Disney animated film "Meet the Robinsons" and the track "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" for the 2008 romantic drama film based on a novel by Sandro Veronesi, "Caos Calmo." He also wrote his first opera, "Prima Donna," which has been commissioned by Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb.

“Frank Sinatra has passed on the torch to me. But little did he know that he'd be passing it on to a gay opera queen.” Rufus Wainwright

As a part of the multi-artist True Colors Tour, Rufus, alongside Debbie Harry, The Gossip, the Indigo Girls, The Dresden Dolls, The MisShapes, Erasure and other special guests, traveled through 15 cities in the United States and Canada in 2007 to help the Human Rights Campaign.

"It seems like the older I get the more unreal the world becomes." Rufus Wainwright

Awards:

• Juno: Best Alternative Album, "Poses," 2002

• Juno: Best Alternative Album, "Rufus Wainwright," 1999