Leonard Cohen’s Death Anniversary Marked With Montreal Gig
Leonard Cohen. Image by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images
(JTA) — The family of singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen has announced a memorial concert to mark the first anniversary of his death.
The concert, called “Tower of Song: A Memorial Tribute to Leonard Cohen,” will be held on Nov. 6 in Cohen’s hometown of Montreal, his family announced on it Monday. It will benefit the Canada Council, which awards grants to Canadian arts projects, and helped Leonard Cohen in the early days of his career.
Among the artists signed on to perform at the concert are Elvis Costello, Lana Del Rey, Philip Glass, Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites of The Lumineers, k.d. lang, Feist, Sting, Patrick Watson, and Damien Rice, Billboard reported. Cohen’s poetry also will be read during the evening by various actors.
“There were so many groups of people expressing beautiful interest in commemorating and memorializing and paying tribute to my old man,” Cohen’s son, Adam Cohen, told Billboard. “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 said that his father wished to be buried in Montreal with a small memorial service, but gave his son permission to organize a large public event after his death, with the condition that it be held in Montreal, the Montreal Gazette reported.
The event will be filmed for a TV special.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
