In January 2010, folk legend Kate McGarrigle, beloved mother of singer-songwriters Rufus and Martha Wainwright, passed away at age 63 from a rare form of cancer called sarcoma. She gave her last public performance, alongside her children, at a historic Royal Albert Hall charity event just six weeks before her death. (“All of the atoms just rallied” when she was onstage, Rufus remembers.) And when Kate’s adoring family gathered to sing around her hospice bed in her final days, there was, as Rufus recalls, a ”famous moment where suddenly she broke out of the coma and she was there with us. … She woke up and she was present for about five seconds, kind of mouthing along to the song.”

Kate’s death understandably had a profound effect on Rufus.”For anybody whose mother is dying, the best advice that was given to me is that your mother gives birth to you twice — once when you’re born, and once when she dies,” he muses. In the years since, he and Martha have carried on their mother’s legacy, not only in their own critically acclaimed musical careers, but also through the Kate McGarrigle Fund. Having witnessed firsthand how music-making was so therapeutic for their mother, the Wainwrights’ charity has helped musicians facing aggressive cancers record their own songs and preserve their own legacies. “There is definitely some kind of life-giving force that music can give to us,” says Rufus. “I think for anybody struggling with cancer, just any moment you can have where you feel health and you feel power and you feel inspiration is just so, so valuable.”

And now, on Dec. 3, aka Giving Tuesday, the Rufus and Martha will launch Folk Cancer: The Kate McGarrigle Project, a collaboration with Cancer Can Rock that offers musicians the opportunity to create, express, and record their music during a very unsettling time. The launch event is invitation-only — “We’re going to do a little cocktail party at Lou Reed’s old house in the Village. The wonderful Laurie Anderson is letting us do that. It’s going to be a very select crowd. Nobody’s invited who’s watching this [interview]!” Rufus jokes. However, fans and donors can still witness this special night. “We wanted to keep it small and intimate, but we’ll be doing a livestream, and Martha and I will be singing songs of our mother’s, mostly.”

Folk Cancer’s launch is perfectly timed with the holiday season — “My mother always loved Christmas,” Rufus says — but in the New Year, on Jan. 17, Warner Classics will release the live recording from the June 2024 Paris premiere of Rufus’s epic (and darkly prescient) orchestral work Dream Requiem, featuring Meryl Streep as the narrator. (Dream Requiem will be staged on May 4, 2025, at L.A.’s Disney Hall, with Jane Fonda stepping into Streep’s role.) Below, Rufus opens up about that timely project, his mother’s legacy and final days, becoming a parent himself, the evolution of his relationship with his sister, the healing power of music, and what his mom would think the state of the world in 2024.

(photo: Miranda-Penn-Turin)

LYNDSANITY: Happy Giving Tuesday to you in advance. Please tell me about this great event you’re doing on Dec. 3 with Cancer Can Rock, in conjunction with the Kate McGarrigle Project, and why it was important for you to do this.

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT: My sister Martha and I, our mother Kate McGarrigle was a great musician. She and her sister Anna were one of the preeminent folk duos of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, and made some of the best records ever made — I think, anyways. So, music was sort of the center of our lives, of our family’s life. And growing up, and we started doing these Christmas shows at a certain point, because my mother always loved Christmas. And so that was kind of going along swimmingly, but then unfortunately, my mother was diagnosed with a very bad form of cancer. It was a sarcoma, a very rare form, which is never good, and the outlook was not positive. At that point, my mom, who knew that pretty much that she didn’t have much time left, decided to really shift the focus of these Christmas shows and have more of a charity base to them. We started raising money for sarcoma research, and she really used that as a way to just get her mind off of what was happening in her life. We did that for about three years as her health declined, and they were amazing concerts. In fact, her last one was in London at the Royal Albert Hall, and it was packed. All these special guests like Boy George and Neil Tennant and Brian Eno — everybody was there. So, her last concert was at the Royal Albert Hall, and that was a great way to go.

That was not long before she passed, correct? She was pretty much performing until the end?

Yeah, that was the [December] before she died. She sang up until the end. Music was such a kind of powerful tool for her to both forget about what was going on and also face what was happening. She was able to do both of that at the same time. And she wrote this amazing song actually called “Prosperina,” which is the myth of Persephone, which we still sing at every Christmas show; Martha has an amazing version of on one of her albums. Anyway, after she died, my sister Martha and I decided to keep up that work of raising money for [cancer] research. … We felt at a certain point that we would really love to do something where we could see the results immediately, and something that our mother Kate would’ve really loved, so we came up with the idea of creating these grants — $10,000, let’s say — to musicians who are struggling with very serious cancer. Just give them a little bit of money so that they can go into the studio and just take some time off from their care and focus on their art, which is their true passion. … Lo and behold, this wonderful organization, Cancer Can Rock, got in touch with us. And I looked at their mandate and I realized that they were doing exactly what we wanted to do. … So, we got in touch with them, and it’s just a really beautiful voyage since.

I’m trying to phrase this question away that won’t sound like corny or cliché or too Hallmark-y, but do you think that music heals, or can be medicine? You talk about how your mother was singing almost up until the end. I don’t know if you have any theories if that maybe prolonged her life, or could that music and performing could prolong the lives of people who are seriously ill.

All I can say is — and this pertains to that concert at the Royal Albert Hall — is we were backstage, and my mother was actually most of the time lying on the couch with a pile of coats on top of her. She was just so sick and so cold. But she wanted to be there. And then she’d kind of get up and do makeup to go out, because she would sing periodically throughout the evening, and when she went out, she suddenly was imbued with a certain life force. All of the atoms in her body just rallied! And then she walked offstage and she looked totally healthy and great, for about 10 minutes. And then, she was exhausted again. But there is definitely some kind of life-giving force that music can give to us. Whether we have to pay the price for it, I don’t know. But I think for anybody struggling with cancer, just any moment you can have where you feel health and you feel power and you feel inspiration is just so, so valuable. It’s also very meaningful, because as I said, it’s also a way for a cancer [patient] — and I can’t talk to this personally, I just saw my mother go through it — to process what’s happening and what might happen in the end. So, it’s deep.

I hope you don’t mind me asking about this, but I did read, I think an interview you did with The Guardian that you sang with your mother in the hospital when at the end. Do you mind me asking about that?

It wasn’t actually in the hospital; it was in our home. She died at home. But yes. I think for the last few days or about the last week, she didn’t want to hear any music.

Really?

Yeah, yeah. I think at that point it was a little too emotional for her. She wanted silence, which I get. It was mostly about being silent, which is the ultimate music in certain ways, one can argue — true silence. So, she wanted silence at the very end. But then once she went into a coma, everybody gathered around. Even Emmylou Harris came up from Nashville, and my dad [Loudon Wainwright III] came up, and we all sang for about a day around her. I will say that was probably mostly for us, but it was incredibly powerful. I don’t know… I think she was deserving of that type of drama! My mother was that type of figure.

Were there specific songs that you recall singing?

Yeah. One of the most amazing things that happened… we sang a whole bunch of things, and I would play opera recordings that we loved and different things, but there was one song, which is an old French folk song that she sang to me. I sang it to our daughter, and it’s probably gone back hundreds of years, maybe even like a thousand. We started singing it, and then it was that famous moment where suddenly she broke out of the coma and she was there with us. She didn’t sing the lyrics, but she woke up and she was present for about five seconds, kind of mouthing along to the song. And then she departed again. So, it did bring her out for a couple of seconds, then she was off on her journey.

What an amazing story. Thank you for sharing that with me. I’ve noticed in your own recent work you’ve been singing more about family and marriage. How does that mindset tie into what you’re doing with Cancer Can Rock?

I’ve always written about my life, for better or for worse. In fact, one of my favorite kind of experiences of late is that I’ve really gotten into Randy Newman, and I didn’t know that none of his songs are about him! They’re all fabricated, they’re all pretend situations, and I was just bowled over, like, “You mean I don’t have to write about myself all the time?” [laughs] But whatever, I took that road. And yes, my life at the moment is really family-based. My husband and I have a 13-year-old daughter, and I’m also continuing a tradition. I mean, my mother and father did the same thing: They wrote about us.

Yes, your dad wrote quite a famous song about you and your mom!

Yeah, “Rufus Is a Tit Man.” [laughs] So, we’re just kind of also continuing a tradition. It’s just our destiny, I guess.

Obviously, your daughter Viva [whose mother is Lorca Cohen, daughter of Leonard] has musical lineage on both sides. Do you see her following a musical path? Is she musically inclined?

Yes, she has a beautiful voice, and she’s curious. I tend to not want to push her in any direction. I think for anybody in our family, it’s a lot of pressure too, so I just want her to enjoy her childhood. But yeah, she has a beautiful voice, so when she wants to, it’s all there.

I’ve interviewed various second-generation musicians over years, and I do actually remember Dhani Harrison telling me when he told his father George that he wanted to go into music, his dad was like, “No! Be a lawyer!” Obviously, fame and the arts can be a hard career choice, but it can also be a hard road if you’re following the footsteps of famous parents.

Well, I was very fortunate because my parents, though they were quite well-known and certainly respected, I never had to deal with that level of fame of the Beatles, or even with Leonard Cohen and stuff, which Viva has to deal with a bit. I was blessed with not having to deal with that; I could see that being very difficult. But that being said, if you need to do it, you need to do it. And that is what dictates the path with music: You have no choice in the matter. So, you just have to go for it, if it tells you to.

So, if Viva does say one day, “I want to go into music,” you won’t be like, “No, become a doctor”?

No, no. I would support her all the way and I’d be totally into it. Actually, that’s what I’m used to.

Am I correct in the timeline, that Viva’s birth was not long after Kate passed?

She was born about a year after my mom died. So yeah, there was a transfer of some sort in the ether. … That whole period in general around my mother’s death was a very mystical time, and obviously heartbreaking and dark and so forth, but also magical in a lot of ways. For anybody whose mother is dying, the best advice that was given to me is that your mother gives birth to you twice — once when you’re born, and once when she dies. And it really was that kind of full-blown experience, where it was this whole new world with opening up, for better or for worse. So, I actually cherished that time deeply, deeply, and feel so fortunate that I was able to be around for it as well.

Your next album, out Jan. 17, is the live recording of Dream Requiem, which is less personal and family-oriented than some of your other work. Can you tell me a bit about that? I know you wrote it during the pandemic.

As well as doing pop music and stuff, I’m now, I guess a classical composer as well. I mean, I’ve written composed two operas and some other works, but this is my Requiem Mass, which it’s a complete classical piece, and I’m very excited about it because wrote it mostly during COVID and it really came out galloping. Whether it was like pent-up, latent Catholicism, I don’t know, or the fires in California at a certain point, and of course just the state of the world in general. Just that whole Latin death-mask thing was really speaking to me, whether it was redemption or damnation or hellfire or heaven. So, it has that, and then of course, within that, there’s this poem called Darkness by Byron, and that poem specifically talks about ecological destruction. It was a poem that was written in I think 1815 after this insane volcano had erupted in Asia, and the whole world was dark for a year, and nobody knew what was happening. Everybody thought the world was ending. And in fact, it was the year that Frankenstein was written and so forth, so it was kind of a Gothic year. And so that poem is about, what if everything was would crumble? And sadly, we’re now faced with that possibility. Whether it’s that or just the state of the world in general with wars and stuff, this piece is engaged in that battle. I think we are in a time where we just have to face a lot of this stuff. And so, yeah, come hear it, because it’s talking about what’s happening.

Do you feel like it resonates even more now than when you wrote it a few years ago?

Well, not to be spooky about it, and it’s not being spooky at all, but just so much of that text is about the Middle East. It’s all Israel and Zion and stuff going on there. And when you just see these images coming out of that part of the world, and we’re just still fighting over all that crap, it’s just whether you like it or not, it’s still so central to our existence as human beings. I personally kind of hate it, but you can’t run away from it. And so, this is sort of taking some of that spirit and trying to make it into something more, I wouldn’t say necessarily uplifting, but something more transformative. … As an artist, I do feel very strongly that these dark times are good for the arts. Your creative powers become more both in tune, and also needed. You can see that there’s great movies coming out now and some really interesting music, I don’t know, I go to the arts to salvage the world.

What do you think your mother think of the state of the world right now?

That’s a very interesting question; I haven’t thought about that. She would definitely look more into the kind of psyche of the world and maybe even the United States, in the sense that there’s just an insanity that we’re still grappling with. And my mother was a little crazy too. I don’t think she would’ve been a Trump supporter or anything like that at all — she’s very Canadian, and she would’ve been very levelheaded on that level. But nonetheless, she liked a good dramatic time as well. So, I don’t think she would be depressed, but I think she would also be kind of up for the fight, shall we say.

Do you feel like your music that you put out in the next few years will lean more towards the political, not the personal?

Well, I really do think that Dream Requiem is going to be an important touchstone artistically for this era. I sound really, whatever, arrogant, maybe saying that, but it came so fast, and I just felt like this conduit that was delivering this piece of music from somewhere else. And just so many people have been wanting to do it, and it’s going to so many places, so just the timing of it seems too good to be true. So, I am going to be really riding on that train for this. And in the meantime, I just wouldn’t want to make a pop record. At some point I’d like to get into the studio and just kind of translate some of this into my own songwriting, and I don’t know what that’ll be like, but I’m excited to do that. And that’s just to escape the world and so forth.

Will there be any other stagings of Dream Requiem, now that the live recording is coming out?

Yes, it’s coming to L.A.! It’s coming to Disney Hall on May the Fourth, so you can’t forget that day. And the narrator in that will be Jane Fonda! It’s with the L.A. Master Chorale, who I think are the greatest chorus in America.

Whoa. I know Meryl Streep did it before. How did Jane Fonda become involved?

I told her about it at a cocktail party, and after I said, “I think we’re bringing it to Disney Hall,” she went, “I’m doing it.” She just immediately said, “I’m doing it.” And I was like, “OK, we’re set.

Wow, I am really looking forward to that in the New Year. In the meantime, is there anything else you want to talk about Giving Tuesday’s Cancer Can Rock event?

We’re just very excited to work with Cancer Can Rock and create Folk Cancer, my sister Martha and I. It’s very important for us also to work together — then we see each other more, because she lives in Canada. There’s just a special magic when her and I, especially together honoring our mother’s memory, and so I think people will get a kick out of it.

Am I correct in recalling that maybe, at least at one time, you and Martha had some kind of friction?

When my career first started, there was a lot of jealousy from both sides. I think she was jealous of my success and so forth, but I was certainly jealous of her rock ‘n’ roll attitude and her punk-rock spirit. She was more Brooklyn; I was more Manhattan! We straightened things out over the years, but really when our mother died, that cemented our love for each other.

For details on how fans can donate and receive access to the Dec. 3 livestream, visit FolkCancer.org.