Singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright will honour Judy Garland on her birthday with a special digital performance of his popular tribute concert.
The musician recreated Garland’s famed gig at New York City’s Carnegie Hall in 1961 for his own 2007 showcase, titled, Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall, and to mark what would have been the late icon’s 99th birthday on 10 June (21), Wainwright is staging the gig once more for fans to view online.
The pre-recorded event, which airs at 8pm ET, will be streamed from Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, where he got to use the same microphone as Garland once did.
Fans will see him joined onstage by Kristin Chenoweth, and virtually by his singer sister Martha Wainwright, who was beamed in from Montreal, Canada.
And there was one very special person making up the intimate audience – actress Renee Zellweger, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Garland in 2019 biopic Judy.
Announcing the one-off show, which will close out his current series of virtual gigs, known as the Rufus-Retro-Wainwright-Spective!, the star said: “The American Songbook and Judy Garland’s famed 1961 Carnegie Hall concert gave me a lot of hope after 9/11 and lead (sic) to the idea for my first song by song recreation of that show at the same venue.
“It felt fitting to do the entire set again as the dazzling finale of my Rufus-Retro-Wainwright-Spective and hopefully the beginning of the finale of this global pandemic.”
“Once again, these songs revealed their healing power,” he continued. “To be able to sing them in front of Renee, to sing with Kristin Chenoweth and still have my sister Martha be part of these shows was particularly meaningful, although to sing them into the very microphone that Judy used for her recordings at Capitol Studios was the most mind-blowing.”
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