For Rufus Wainwright, writing songs is more than a vocation. “It’s almost a bodily function by now,” he said this week. ”I write songs all the  time, I go to the piano first thing every morning, and jot things down in the middle of the night. It’s getting to the point where I have to figure out things in my life that make me happy that have nothing to do with music. But music has never failed me. I’m grateful for that but also somewhat bound to it as well.”

Wainwright will be in familiar singer-songwriter mode for two shows May 24 at City Winery, but recent months have also seen his most ambitious projects. His musical “Opening Night,” based on the John Cassavetes film, ran this spring in London’s West End. And a long-form classical piece, “Dream Requiem” will debut this month in Paris and Los Angeles (He says there will be a very famous narrator, whose name can’t be revealed until the ink dries). Meanwhile his latest album “Folkocracy” harks back to the songs he grew up with, as the son of acclaimed writers Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle.

“I turned 50 this year and didn’t think it would be symbolic, but it totally was,” he said. “I returned to my roots with ‘Folkocracy’ and then I composed my requiem mass, which is looking at the roots of where I’ll be buried eventually. The middle of my life is proving to be powerful and inspiring in a good way, and also a little spooky.”

The musical proved a bit controversial. Like the movie it was psychological and a bit dark, reviews were wildly mixed, and it closed after two months. “It was very divisive and very Rufus. I just saw that Alicia Keys spent 13 years on her musical; mine only took four, and I think the craziness of how unpredictable it was gave it a kind of magic. For one of the final performances, someone came from a theater in Paris, and I had my mind made up that he would love the show and take it to Paris — but as it turned out, he hated it. But on the very last night, I brought Pete Townshend as my guest, He said it was a masterpiece and was in tears by the end. So I’m glad it was him that loved it.”

Wainwright’s is no stranger to unconventional gestures; a few years ago he famously performed the entirety of Judy Garland’s Carnegie Hall concert. “I didn’t hear that album until I was older. I was always a big fan but it was mostly her early movies, the cinematic Garland. In a strange way, I feel like I was fated — I was holding off (on the Carnegie album) because I knew it would become such a fascination. So maybe at the age of 12 I was saying ‘I’m not ready yet, I’m going to save this for later.’

This weekend will amount to something of a refuel. “I tend to pursue quite grandiose things — operas, musicals and so forth. That is a passion of mine, and unfortunately it’s an expensive passion and not one for the mainstream. So I do a few  things to boost my income and to stay in touch with the fans, which is really my life.”