Rufus Wainwright has never shied away from ambition, but with Dream Requiem, he steps into truly monumental territory. Commissioned by major cultural institutions across the U.S., U.K., and Europe, this world-premiere recording marks a career-defining moment for the Grammy-nominated artist. Known for his genre-defying brilliance and collaborations with legends from Elton John to Joni Mitchell, Wainwright now delivers a work that transcends the personal and touches the universal.

Written during the pandemic, Dream Requiem is a meditation on loss, of life, of connection, of certainty. As Wainwright himself describes, it is a requiem “for the people we have lost in this crisis, for the past from which we are cut off and for the future to which we do not yet know how to connect.” But its scope extends even further, confronting environmental collapse and the rising tide of natural disasters. Echoing his hero, Giuseppe Verdi, Wainwright interweaves the solemnity of the Latin Mass for the Dead with Lord Byron’s Darkness, a chilling poem inspired by the aftermath of the 1815 Mount Tambora eruption, which plunged the world into “the year without summer.”

Adding to the gravity of the project, Dream Requiem features narration by the legendary Meryl Streep, whose voice guides listeners through its emotional depths. The composition itself is striking, Wainwright’s signature melodic grandeur meets the weight of classical tradition, with soaring choral passages and orchestral textures that shift between intimacy and overwhelming power.

In January, Dream Requiem embarked on a worldwide tour, bringing Wainwright’s vision to audiences across the globe. For an artist who has always balanced operatic sensibilities with pop’s immediacy, this is perhaps his most profound statement yet, one that speaks not only to the present moment but to the echoes of history and the uncertainty of what lies ahead.