By Hayden Wright
It’s been almost one year since Leonard Cohen passed away last November, and to commemorate the anniversary, Cohen’s family has announced a star-studded tribute concert. Tower of Song: A Memorial Tribute to Leonard Cohen will feature Elvis Costello, Lana Del Rey, Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites of The Lumineers, Feist, Damien Rice, k.d. Lang, composer Philip Glass and more.
Related: U2 Pay Tribute to Leonard Cohen with ‘Suzanne’ Cover
The concert will take place November 6 in Montreal, Quebec where Cohen was born and raised. Proceeds will benefit Canada Council—the government trust that helped fund Cohen’s early writing career. The Council of Arts and Letters of Quebec and the Montreal Arts Council will also receive a share of the proceeds. Cohen’s son Adam, one of the event’s lead organizers, sat down with Billboard to discuss how the concert came together.
“There were so many groups of people expressing beautiful interest in commemorating and memorializing and paying tribute to my old man,” he said. “Instead of having it be a whole bunch of candles burning in various places, we wanted to pull a bunch of disparate pieces together and make a big bonfire, a big sight on a hill.”
Adam Cohen also described what the Canada Council meant to Leonard as an upstart artist pursuing his creative dreams.
“The grant system that they have has been in place to encourage and support artists of all type,” he said. “My father was one of them, and he always wore it as a badge of pride for Canada. He always had gratitude for the Canadian grant system that gave him his start.”
Director Jack Bender will film “Tower of Song: A Memorial Tribute to Leonard Cohen” to air as a TV special.
