PHILLIPS – The Sultans of String, three-time JUNO (Canada’s Grammy) nominees and SiriusXM Award winners, are set to raise the rafters with their 10th Anniversary Celebration Tour this summer. The tour includes a much anticipated stop at the Phillips Area Community Center on Aug. 3 at 7 p.m. They’ll have their new, special edition vinyl album in tow, celebrating a milestone decade aptly titled “10.”
Touring non-stop in support of their latest CD, Subcontinental Drift , this “energetic and exciting band, with talent to burn” (Maverick Magazine, UK) serves up a musical passport of Celtic reels, Flamenco, Gypsy-jazz, Arabic, and Cuban rhythms. Fiery violin dances with kinetic guitar, while funky bass lays down unstoppable grooves. Throughout, acoustic strings meet electronic wizardry to create layers and depth of sound.
Sultans of String’s music has hit #1 across Canada on Top 10 national radio charts, #15 on Billboard (world music), top 10 on CMJ (world), and received multiple awards and accolades, including 1st place in the ISC (out of 15,000 entries), 3 Canadian Folk Music Awards, a Queen’s Diamond Jubilee medal for bandleader Chris McKhool, plus invitations to perform/record with such luminaries as The Chieftains, Sweet Honey In The Rock, and David Bromberg.
The band is led by 5-string violinist McKhool (Jesse Cook, Pavlo) who was raised in a Lebanese-Egyptian household just bursting with music and diversity. Growing up, Chris was fed a steady diet of delicious musicality alongside Middle Eastern cuisine and violin lessons. At the core of the band’s sound is his bold and fiery fiddle, melded seamlessly with founding guitarist Kevin Laliberté’s (Jesse Cook) rumba rhythm. Together their musical synergy created Sultans of String’s signature sound – the intimate and playful relationship between violin and guitar. Added to this rich foundation is bass master Drew Birston (Chantal Kreviazuk).
The band’s US manager and acclaimed promoter David Wilkes (Bela Fleck, Emmylou Harris) said: “Over the decades, I’ve worked with numerous top ten and #1 Billboard artists. In all that time, I have not worked with composers more talented than Chris McKhool and Kevin Laliberté from Sultans of String. Not only are they a superb writing team, they are also amazing arrangers and performers.”
Sultans of String have been criss-crossing North America for the last several years at many taste-making forums such as NYC’s legendary Birdland, Boston’s Scullers and California’s hip music scene including the San Jose Jazz Festival. They recently sold out Koerner Hall (Toronto’s Carnegie Hall), and performed with Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Stratford, Ontario and Niagara Symphony Orchestras, as well with Kingsfield POPS in Maine and Maryland’s Annapolis Symphony. Sultans of String were filmed by MPBN’s Maine Arts! in a feature concert, and have performed live on BBC TV, BBC Radio, Irish National Radio, and the internationally syndicated shows WoodSongs, World Cafe, and on SiriusXM in Washington.
