Red Bird Live presents Sultans of String!

Name: Red Bird Live presents Sultans of String!
Start: 2026-03-22T20:00:00-04:00
Location: Red Bird Live

Schedule

Sun, 22 Mar, 2026 at 08:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

Red Bird Live | Ottawa, ON

3x JUNO nominees and SiriusXM winners Sultans of String create, “Energetic and exciting music from a band with talent to burn!” (Maverick Magazine UK). Thrilling their audiences with their genre-hopping passport of Celtic reels, flamenco, Django-jazz, Arabic and Cuban rhythms, Sultans of String celebrate musical fusion and human creativity with warmth and virtuosity. Fiery violin dances with rumba-flamenco guitar, while Saskia Tomkins' nyckelharpa lays downs unstoppable grooves. Acoustic strings meet with electronic wizardry to create layers and depth of sound, while world rhythms excite audiences to their feet with the irresistible need to dance.
Bandleader and Ottawa-boy Chris McKhool has an Egyptian-born mother who happened to play the piano, teach classical theory, and feed her young son as much Middle Eastern cuisine as she did music lessons. From there, the powerful violinist developed a taste for multi-genre string sounds and found a like-minded crew of all-world enthusiasts. When McKhool first heard founding guitarist Kevin Laliberté’s (Jesse Cook) rumba rhythm, their musical synergy created Sultans of String’s signature sound—the intimate and playful relationship between violin and guitar.
Equally at home in a concert series, folk or jazz club, or festival setting, they have been featured at many taste-making forums such as JUNOFest, legendary jazz club Birdland in NYC, the renowned Celtic Connections Festival in the UK, and California’s hip music scene, including the San Jose Jazz Festival. They recently sold out Koerner Hall, and performed with Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Sultans of String have performed live on BBC TV, Irish National Radio, and the internationally syndicated shows WoodSongs, and on SiriusXM in Washington DC.