Chris McKhool – 7x Canadian Folk Music Award winner, 2026 JUNO nominee for Children’s Album of the Year, and one of the country’s most beloved family entertainers – today announces an eleven-date northern Ontario tour in celebration of his long-awaited new album Little Leaf. Running from April 22 through May 5, the tour touches down in Iroquois Falls, Kirkland Lake, Cobalt, Sault Ste. Marie, Longlac, Geraldton, Sioux Lookout, Dryden, Kenora, Fort Frances, and Atikokan – bringing McKhool’s joyful, fully interactive live show to communities across the region.
Little Leaf marks McKhool’s first children’s album since FiddleFire! – the release that won him the Canadian Folk Music Award for Children’s Album of the Year and earned his first JUNO nomination in the category – making it one of the most anticipated records of his three-decade career. The album takes its guiding philosophy from the natural world: “The songs speak to how all living beings around us are part of our community,” McKhool explains. “You can pick up a leaf and name it – when you name the plants and the animals around you, they become personal, and you see them as part of your circle. The children in our lives also represent little leaves, falling free from their parents and becoming independent, while forever connected to their family and natural environment.”
The album is characteristically generous in its collaborations, featuring songs written with Ojibway Elder Duke Redbird alongside works by Canadian legends David Archibald and Bing Jensen. McKhool’s live show is equally abundant – part concert, part environmental celebration, and entirely participatory. Children join the band onstage to play percussion instruments from around the globe, dance to the global grooves, and sing songs about caring for the planet. For thirty years, McKhool has brought his audiences to a new level of understanding of our connection to forests, air, water, and animals, reaching over one million children live in concert along the way.
McKhool is joined on tour by bandmates from his other celebrated project Sultans of String – also a multiple CFMA winner – including Saskia Tomkins on fiddle and nyckelharpa and Kevin Laliberté on guitar. The ensemble brings the same warmth and virtuosity that has made Sultans of String a fixture on Canadian stages to the joyful, world-music-inflected sound of Little Leaf.
The recognition surrounding McKhool and this album speaks for itself. Hailed as a “children’s musical star” by the National Post and “Canada’s greatest eco-troubadour for young people” by the Mississauga Living Arts Centre, he is a Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal recipient, a Green Toronto Award winner, a 2025 Festivals & Events Ontario Performer of the Year, and was recently inducted into the Burlington Performing Arts Centre Hall of Fame and presented with Burlington’s Key to the City. Bob Ezrin, producer of Pink Floyd and KISS, has offered his own characteristically succinct assessment: “Chris McKhool and the boys were fantastic. They can play my Bar Mitzvah.”
Tickets and full tour information are available at https://fiddlefire.com/tour.
TOUR DATES
APR 22 – Iroquois Falls Arts Council – Boyle Auditorium, Iroquois Falls
APR 23 – Kirkland Lake Entertainment – Northern College, Kirkland Lake
APR 24 – Pied Piper Kidshow – Classic Theatre, Cobalt
APR 26 – Over the Rainbow – Korah Collegiate, Sault Ste. Marie
APR 28 – Geraldton Children’s Series – Longlac (Education Show)
APR 29 – Geraldton Children’s Series – Geraldton (Education Show)
APR 30 – Kids Kaleidoscope – Sioux North HS, Sioux Lookout
MAY 1 – Dryden Youth Entertainment Series – Dryden Regional Cultural Centre, Dryden
MAY 3 – Sunday Smiles Family Entertainment Series – St. John Paul II, Kenora
MAY 4 – Kids and Company – Townshend Theatre, Fort Frances
MAY 5 – Atikokan Children’s Entertainment Series – St. Patrick’s, Atikokan