Rufus Wainwright Credit: Photo via Rufus Wainwright/Facebook

Despite previous struggles with addiction and being sexually assaulted as a teenager, Vancouver singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright has accomplished more in 49 years than some people do in their whole lives.

Hear it for yourself when Rufus Wainwright plays Ferguson Hall at David A. Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa on Friday, Oct. 7.

In the last five years alone, he has written an opera about an ancient Roman emperor (not his first either), put together a live stream where he played nothing but Judy Garland songs, and released a new studio album of entirely original material (Unfollow The Rules).

Wainwright’s most recent appearance in Tampa Bay—at Clearwater’s Bilheimer Capitol Theatre—was a poignant one, falling on the same day as the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.