Rabih Abou-Khalil Group (Lebanon) • Christmas Jazz 2025

One of world music’s leading figures, the brilliant oud virtuoso Rabih Abou-Khalil appears in Estonia for the first time! A warm, down-to-earth maestro with more than 25 albums to his name, he has delighted music fans for 40 years. In Abou-Khalil’s music, Arab roots and inherited traditions are woven together with those of the West – he doesn’t separate cultures but sets them side by side, offering inspiration to lovers of jazz, rock, world music, and classical music alike.

Rabih Abou-Khalil was born in Lebanon and began learning the oud at the age of four – an instrument as popular in the Arab world as the guitar is in the West. Having lived in Germany for many years and now based in France, he remains independent of global music trends. He has collaborated with jazz luminaries such as Steve Swallow, Kenny Wheeler, and Joachim Kühn, as well as classical ensembles including The Modern Ensemble, the Balanescu Quartet, the Kronos Quartet, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Khalil’s musical essence is perhaps best summed up by his bandmate Mateusz Smoczyński: “Rabih doesn’t like being put in a box – and his music resists categorisation, too. You can’t call it folk, classical, or rock; it’s Rabih’s music.”

Rabih Abou-Khalil – oud
Mateusz Smoczyński – violin
Krzysztof Lenczowski – cello
Jarrod Cagwin – percussion