The Carleton Presents Queen Kong

Queen Kong play The Carleton on Wednesday, July 29, bringing their blend of klezmer, jazz, and original composition to Halifax. The Toronto-based ensemble is led by drummer and composer Lorie Wolf, and they've built their name on an explosive mix of contemporary klezmer, jazz, and modern folk. They've picked up a Canadian Folk Music Award for Instrumental Group of the Year along the way, and a nomination for Instrumental Composer of the Year.

For this show, they're working from their 2026 album Mitsve Tants, a project that takes traditional Hasidic wedding melodies and reimagines them through groove-driven arrangements and improvisation. It's a specific starting point — those old wedding tunes — but the way they're handled here puts them in a very different place, with the groove and the improvisation taking the lead.

The ensemble on stage is a full horn section backed by rhythm. Lorie Wolf is on drums, bandleader, and composer; Max Forster plays trumpet; Josseé MacInnes is on clarinet; Nathan Dell-Vandenberg takes the trombone; Graham Campbell is on guitar; and Tom Richards holds down the low end on sousaphone. With trumpet, clarinet, trombone, and sousaphone all in the mix, there's a lot of brass and reed work to carry the melodies, and the sousaphone gives the whole thing a heavy, walking foundation.

It's a mid-week gig, so if you're heading out on a Wednesday, the music runs from 7:00 to 9:00 pm at The Carleton. Tickets are C$28.50.