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About A Not So Silent Night
Each year, Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, and several of their well-known musical friends produce Noël Nights or A Not So Silent Night, a series of holiday concerts in major North American cities. Proceeds from event ticket sales and special VIP packages will go to the Kate McGarrigle Fund. Monies raised in Canada will go to music therapy and research in Canada, and monies raised in the U.S. will go to music therapy and research in the U.S
In January 2020, the Stand Up To Cancer Canada Kate McGarrigle Fund launched the “Music As Healing” Grant Program, an initiative that encourages both cancer patients and cancer survivors, to share their cancer journey through original music compositions. Cancer patients and survivors were invited to submit original compositions (music and lyrics) to compete for ten grants. The finalists’ songs were compiled into a digital Music As Healing album that is available on Spotify and will benefit the Kate McGarrigle Fund and go towards sarcoma research. Martha Wainwright acts as Music Director for the SU2C Kate McGarrigle Fund music therapy program. The Kate McGarrigle Fund is a fund of the Entertainment Industry Foundation, a Charity Navigator Four-Star Charity that meets all 20 Better Business charity standards and carries the Candid Platinum Seal of Transparency
The annual holiday celebration has its roots in the childhood home of Rufus and Martha’s mother, the Canadian folk legend Kate McGarrigle. The family would carol in the living room of their wooden home in the Laurentian mountain town of St. Sauveur. This is very much still the spirit of these holiday shows that Kate, and later her children, brought to major concert halls around the world, from London’s Royal Festival Hall and Dublin’s National Concert Hall to New York’s Carnegie Hall and Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. When Kate was tragically diagnosed with sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, she began to raise money and awareness for funding research into the disease as at the time there were no drugs available to treat it. In December 2009, she bravely performed her last family Christmas concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall. For that show, she wrote a heartbreaking song, “Proserpina,” that tells the story of Hera bemoaning the loss of her daughter Proserpina who married Hades and would live with him for half of the year in the underworld and would return to her mother in the spring and summer bringing warmth and light. It mirrored her own situation as her daughter Martha was bound in London after the premature birth of her son Arcangelo and could not travel home to be with her dying mother.
Rufus and Martha continue Kate’s legacy with the Christmas shows, helping to raise awareness and money for the Kate McGarrigle Foundation for Sarcoma Research. Now, that work has expanded to the second show, The Night Before A Not So Silent Night, that has just been announced.
About Murmrr
Founded by Brian Kelly, Murmrr is a community-focused New York-based events company. They program world-renowned and emerging artists in various disciplines including music, art, comedy, literature, and film. Murmrr strives to provide a hi-fi sonic experience coupled with events that promote culture before commerce. http://www.murmrr.com/
About the Kate McGarrigle Fund
Kate McGarrigle was a Canadian folk music singer-songwriter who wrote and performed as a duo with her sister Anna McGarrigle. She is the mother of singers Rufus Wainwright and Martha Wainwright from her marriage to American singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III. When Kate was diagnosed with sarcoma in 2007, it became her mission to combat the disease. Later that same year, she and a handful of friends founded The Kate McGarrigle Fund in Canada. Following Kate’s death in 2010, the family expanded to the United States by founding The Kate McGarrigle Foundation, allowing the family to work specifically on Kate’s musical and artistic legacy while also funding research in the U.S. Recently, The Kate McGarrigle Foundation and The Kate McGarrigle Fund joined SU2C and SU2C Canada, respectively, to further expand their reach and fundraising efforts.
In the summer of 2010 Richard Thompson staged the first of a series of tributes to Kate McGarrigle’s music at London’s Royal Festival Hall as part of his Melt Down Festival. Sing Me the Songs That Say I Love You: A Concert for Kate McGarrigle is a documentary directed by Lian Lunson that captures the May 2011 tribute concert honoring the late, great singer songwriter Kate McGarrigle in New York City. This documentary is partly a concert, and partly an intimate look at a family coming to terms with the loss of a loved one. Candid interviews with Kate’s family and friends are paired with rousing performances of her music. Sing Me the Songs That Say I Love You had its world premiere at Sundance London Film Festival in April 2012 and was also shown at the Berlinale and other festivals around the world.
Press Contact:
Jim Merlis, Big Hassle Media
jim@bighassle.com
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