[Montreal] Leonard Cohen returns to a Montreal stage for the first time in 15 years!

News release

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A Festival prelude with three nights at PdA!
Leonard Cohen
returns to a Montreal stage
for the first time in 15 years!
Tickets go on sale this Thursday at noon!

Montreal, Tuesday, March 11, 2008 ’Äî This summer, the Festival International de Jazz de Montrˆ©al has the immense privilege of welcoming legendary Montreal poet and singer Leonard Cohen. It's a rare and long-awaited visit from the internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter, who will perform three pre-opening concerts for his fellow citizens as part of this 29th edition, on June 23, 24 and 25, in Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, Place des Arts. Tickets go on sale this Thursday, March 13 at noon.

Last night, Cohen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in a ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria in New York’Äîand it was about time, too! At 73, Montreal poet, novelist, songwriter and singer Leonard Cohen truly merits the label "immortal": an icon of song as well as literature, he is considered one of the most important and influential songwriters of our time! A great humanist, his songs explore the issues of spirituality, religion, sexuality, power, loneliness, interpersonal relationships’Äîsimply put, the human condition. His profound exploration of these mysteries probably inspired his retreat to a Buddhist monastery from 1994 to 1999.

Faced with our attempts to categorize his music’Äîis it folk with a touch of country or jazz?’ÄîCohen offers the title "European blues." In fact, Cohen's work is itself a category: through 40 years of song, classics such as So Long, Marianne, Bird on a Wire, Hallelujah and Everybody Knows have forged a resolutely unique, inimitable body of work. We'll be reminded of this soon enough, because four years after his last album (Dear Heather, 2004), the singer with the singularly deep voice is talking about a new release for this year. Back in Montreal, the native city that still holds his friends, his house, and his heart, Cohen will grace the Festival with new songs as part of his tour’Äîthe first since The Future brought him to the Forum in June 1993!

A living legend? The facts speak for themselves! Renowned for his poetry and novels since the 1950s, his songs and albums have marked our collective memory forever, making him one of the most famous Montrealers on the planet. Cohen has had an immeasurable influence on succeeding generations of songwriters. Onstage, on record, or in the documentary tribute Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man by Lian Lunson, they line up to sing his praises: from Judy Collins’Äîwho scored a hit with Suzanne, inspired by the wife of Cohen's friend, sculptor Armand Vaillancourt !’Äîto artists from every genre, including Franˆßoise Hardy, Johnny Cash, Rufus Wainwright, Joe Cocker, k.d. lang, Our Lady Peace, Tori Amos, Neil Diamond, U2, Peter Gabriel and Nana Mouskouri! All told, there are over 1,200 cover versions of his songs! That, ladies and gentlemen, is a universal and immortal musical signature!

Tickets on sale this Thursday, March 13 at noon

Tickets for these new concerts go on sale this Thursday, March 13 at noon. Tickets will be available at the main box office at Mˆ©tropolis (59 Ste. Catherine St. E.) and the Place des Arts box office (175 Ste. Catherine St. W.), at 514-842-2112 or at laplacedesarts.com and from Admission, at admission.com or at 514-790’Äë1245.

To get the jump on the crowd, sign up for the Spectra Newsletter and have the scoop on the Festival International de Jazz de Montrˆ©al, the MMIS and the Montreal Guitar Show emailed to your inbox. For more information, call the Bell Info’ÄëJazz Line at 514 871’Äë1881, toll-free at 1 888 515’Äë0515, or visit montrealjazzfest.com.

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