Lana Del Rey, Elvis Costello, Sting to Lead Leonard Cohen Tribute in Montreal
Lana Del Rey, Elvis Costello, Sting, Philip Glass and Feist are among the artists that will perform at a Leonard Cohen tribute concert scheduled for the anniversary of the music legend’s death.
The Lumineers’ Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites, k.d. lang, Damien Rice, Patrick Watson and Cohen’s son Adam Cohen will also take part in Tower of Song: A Memorial Tribute to Leonard Cohen at Montreal’s Bell Center on November 6th. Cohen died November 7th, 2016 in Los Angeles.
“My father left me with a list of instructions before he passed: ‘Put me in a pine box next to my mother and father. Have a small memorial for close friends and family in Los Angeles…and if you want a public event, do it in Montreal,’ Adam Cohen said of the tribute concert in a statement. “I see this concert as a fulfillment of my duties to my father that we gather in Montreal to ring the bells that still can ring.”
Organizers will announce additional artists as well as actors recruited to recite some of Cohen’s poems live in the near future.
Longtime concert producer Hal Willner will oversee the tribute concert, which benefits the Canada Council for the Arts, the Council of Arts and Letters of Quebec and the Montreal Arts Council.
“Leonard Cohen is a literary and musical icon of word-craft,” Willner said in a statement. “On the first anniversary of his passing, we will endeavor to present a tribute to an artist who is universally acknowledged as one of the great poets and songwriters of all time.”
Tickets for the tribute concert, which will also be filmed for an upcoming special, go on sale Saturday, September 23rd at evenko.ca.
Three days after the Tower of Song tribute, on November 9th, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Montreal (MAC) will open its exhibit dedicated to the singer, “Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything.”