Pianist and conductor Saleem Ashkar made his Carnegie Hall debut at the age of 22 and has since gone on to establish an exciting and versatile international career. Recent and future concerto highlights include the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Orchestra National de Lyon, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. 

Previous seasons have seen him perform with the Wiener Philharmoniker, London Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw, the Detroit , St Louis, Vancouver and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestras and on a three-week tour to Australia. Saleem has a close relationship with many leading conductors including David Afkham, Daniel Barenboim, Riccardo Chailly, Jakub Hrůša, Pietari Inkinen, Fabio Luisi, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Kazushi Ono and Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider.

Saleem is Artistic Director of the Galilee Chamber Orchestra, and works with the orchestra both as conductor and soloist. In the summer of 2019 he led the orchestra on a highly acclaimed German tour that took them to Berlin Konzerthaus and the Rheingau festival among other venues. 

In past seasons Saleem has conducted the Jerusalem Symphony, the Bergen philharmonic, Salzburg Kamerata and the Potsdam Kamerakademie .

The upcoming year, he will conduct the Leipzig Radio orchestra in a pure Schostakowitch program as well as the Berlin Konzerthaus chamber orchestra.

He will lead the North American debut of the Galilee Chamber in New York’s Carnegie hall and Toronto with Joshua Bell as soloist. 

Saleem’s most recent recordings have been for Decca Records. They have released the Mendelssohn Piano Concertos with the Leipzig Gewandhaus and Chailly and two Beethoven Concertos with the NDR Elbphilharmonie and Ivor Bolton. Saleem is also recording the complete Beethoven Piano Sonata cycle for Decca, the first 5 volumes of which are already released.