Saleem Aboud Ashkar (Piano)

Born in 1976 in Nazareth, Saleem Abboud Ashkar (piano) studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London (where he has been appointed as “Associate” in 2004) with Maria Curcio and at the Hochschule fur Musik und Theater in Hanover with Professor Arie Vardi. It was Zubin Mehta who discovered the young pianist and engaged him, aged 17 years, as soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra to play Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto.

Saleem Ashkar made his New York Carnegie Hall debut at the age of 22 and has since worked with many of the World’s leading orchestras including the Vienna Philharmonic, La Scala Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, London Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus, NDR Hamburg, DSO RSB and Konzerthaus orchestras in Berlin, Maggio Musicale Firenze, Santa Cecilia Rome, Mariinsky Orchestra St. Petersburg, and Danish Radio Orchestra among others.

He performs regularly with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Daniel Barenboim, Riccardo Muti, Ricardo Chailly, Fabio Luisi, Lawrence Foster, Philip Jordan, Nikolaj Znaider, Pietari Inkinen and Jaakub Hrusa. Following a highly successful debut with Christoph Eschenbach and NDR Hamburg, Eschenbach invited Saleem to play the Schumann Concerto with the Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra in the special Schumann Birthday Concert in June 2010. He toured extensively with Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra performing Mendelssohn’s First Piano Concerto in appearances that included the Proms and Lucerne Festivals, in a tour celebrating the bicentennial anniversary of the composer’s birth. Chailly re-invited Saleem for concerts and to record with him the Mendelssohn Concerti for Decca.

A dedicated recitalist and chamber musician, Saleem’s current focus is a complete Beethoven Sonata Cycle presented by the Konzerthaus, Berlin which spans the 2016/17 season. Saleem will perform the cycle in parallel in Prague and Osnabrück and his home country of Israel. He has appeared in series at venues including the Concertgebouw, Wigmore Hall, Mozarteum Salzburg, Musikverein Vienna, Conservatorio Guiseppe Verdi Milan, Florence and at festivals including Salzburg with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Proms with Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, at Tivoli with the Israel Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta, in Lucerne, Ravinia, Risor, Menton and the Ruhr Klavier Festival, collaborating with artists including Daniel Barenboim, Nikolaj Znaider and Waltraud Meier.

Highlights of the current and future seasons include performances with Bamberg Symphoniker and Eschenbach, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg and Znaider, a tour to Australia to include the Adelaide Symphony and a third consecutive re-invitation to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. He will also travel to Canada and the US for a re-invitation to the National Arts Centre Ottawa with Alexander Shelley, an appearance at Cal Performances, San Francisco and a residency at Brown University.

Saleem’s second Decca CD released in Spring 2014 features both Mendelssohn Piano Concertos recorded with Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhaus Orchestra. His first Decca release included Beethoven’s First and Fourth Piano Concertos recorded with Ivor Bolton and the NDR Hamburg Orchestra.

Saleem is Ambassador to Music Fund, which supports musicians and music schools in conflict areas and developing countries.