Rufus Wainwright, Royal Hospital Chelsea

It seems odd that Rufus Wainwright would become a genre-hopping superstar, but somehow he has. Now aged 41, he has composed one opera and has a second one planned for 2018; he has collaborated with Robert Wilson on a song cycle based on Shakespeare’s sonnets; and he’s performed a series of Judy Garland tribute concerts dressed as the screen icon herself. But when he first emerged with a self-titled album in 1998, he seemed the heir to the recently deceased Jeff Buckley, a silk-voiced folk-rocker with a taste for lushly baroque arrangements.
Much has been written of Wainwright’s musical pedigree, with folk singers Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III as parents and Martha Wainwright as a sister. While the work of all three largely sticks to the confines of folk music, however, Rufus’ music quickly evolved into something else entirely. If Rufus Wainwright dipped a toe into vaudeville and the music hall, astounding follow-up Poses (2001) flung headlong into everything from Gershwin to trip-hop beats. His lyrics struck a balance between the wistfully romantic and the comically sardonic.
By 2003-4’s epic Want One and Two, he had developed a distinctively rich sound, pilfering from pop history to create something simultaneously classy and camp. With the exception of 2010’s relatively restrained All Days Are Nights, recorded in the aftermath of his mother’s death, Wainwright’s subsequent music has continued charting the territory marked out with Want, drawing on both classical and pop influences to often mesmerizing effect.
This summer, Wainwright will perform at Christopher Wren’s Royal Hospital Chelsea, one of London’s most beautiful architectural ensembles. With no album to promote, the concert promises to embrace the entirety of his career, largely stripped down to guitar and piano. For any fan, this is a must-see – and for those who’ve never encountered him, it might just be the perfect gateway into his unique musical world.