Rufus Wainwright

Rufus Wainwright was born in Rhinebeck (New York, 1973) to Kate and Loudon Wainwright, folk singers and musicians. Rufus grew up in Canada with his mother and developed an interest in opera, a passion that would go on to heavily influence his artistic output.

In 1996 he signed a contract with DreamWorks Records: together with producer Jon Brion, he began work on his debut album, the self-titled "Rufus Wainwright" (1998). The album was warmly received by critics, so much so that music journalist Robert Christgau called Wainwright "too talented to pass up", while Rolling Stone named him Best New Artist of 1998.

His second album, "Poses", was released in 2001 and met with an excellent critical reception. The album was written during a six-month stay by Wainwright at the Chelsea Hotel in New York, and moves away from the autobiographical elements of the first album, revealing more curious and adventurous songwriting.

After "Want Series" (2003), "Release The Stars" (2005) and the 2006 tribute concerts to icon Judy Garland on the stage of New York's Carnegie Hall, Wainwright devoted himself entirely to his great passion: opera. He wrote "Prima Donna", which premiered at the Manchester International Festival with a libretto entirely in French, and "Hadrian", which opened the Canadian Opera Company's 2018 season.

The album "Out Of The Game" (2012) marked Wainwright's shift toward more pop and dance-oriented sounds, a turn confirmed by his choice of Mark Ronson as the album's producer. Two years later, Wainwright appeared as international guest at the sixty-fourth edition of the Sanremo Festival, where he performed "Cigarettes And Chocolate Milk" (taken from "Poses").

In 2020 he released the album "Unfollow The Rules" on the Bmg Rights Management label, confirming his focus on distinctly pop sounds. The orchestral grandeur and sumptuous elegance of Rufus Wainwright's music no longer courts Shakespeare: the artist has rediscovered the crossover allure of Cole Porter and reconnected with the American and Canadian folk-pop tradition inherited from his mother and father (Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle). That same year he contributed to the track "Andante" on "Forever", the solo debut album by Francesco Bianconi, frontman of Baustelle.