Rufus and Martha Wainwright's Nashville Noel Nights

Here’s a Christmas show that both benefits good causes and provides sophisticated holiday cheer. Rufus and Martha Wainwright come from a distinguished Canadian-American musical family — their father is famed singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III and their mother was Kate McGarrigle, whose 2010 death deprived us of a great tunesmith and vocalist. This Nashville edition of their Noel Nights Christmas show will feature Emmylou Harris, Jamey Johnson, Alison Krauss, Karen Elson, Kennedy Rose and an all-star Music City band, and it will benefit The Kate McGarrigle Foundation, established in 2007 to raise money for cancer research, as well as The Epilepsy Foundation of Tennessee. If you don’t know the work of Kate and Anna McGarrigle, start with their superb self-titled 1976 full-length. Meanwhile, Rufus and Martha continue to make fascinating music — Rufus’ latest is Take All My Loves: 9 Shakespeare Sonnets, an adaptation of The Bard’s work, while Martha released this year’s excellent Goodnight City. EDD HURT