Honouring Cohen with a “Tower of Song”

Leonard Cohen’s family will celebrate his life in Montreal in November, with some of the biggest names in music performing his songs.

In commemoration of the one year anniversary of his death, the Cohen family announced this morning the “Tower of Song: A Memorial Tribute to Leonard Cohen” at the Bell Centre on Monday, November 6. Tickets will go on sale Saturday (Sept. 23) at noon and will likely sell out almost immediately.

Elvis Costello, Damien Rice, Philip Glass, Patrick Wilson, Sting, k.d. lang and Feist are among the artists slated to perform during the celebration, which will also include Adam Cohen, a co-producer of the event in honour of his father. More singers and actors will be added to the event, according to the family’s announcement.

“My father left me with a list of instructions before he passed,” Adam Cohen says in the announcement. “‘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.’ 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.”

Can’t make it to Montreal? The event will be filmed by Jack Bender, director of Game of Thrones, The Sopranos and other notable titles, and will be broadcast later as a special.

Tributes in music and art

Hal Willner will serve as producer of the event and calls Cohen “a literary and musical icon of word-craft. 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.”

Funds raised through the event will be donated to the Canada Council for the Arts, the Council of Arts and Letters of Quebec and the Montreal Arts Council.

The concert will begin a week-long series of events commemorating Cohen’s life and the one-year anniversary of his death, on November 7, 2016, at the age of 82 in his Los Angeles home.  On November 9, a new display at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, “Leonard Cohen: Une brèche en toute chose / A Crack in Everything,” will open to the public; it’s an exhibit Cohen approved before his death.

More information on all commemorations is available at www.LeonardCohen.com.