SaleemAshkar

Press

• Musical Bridges Recital

  Manzoni Auditorium, Bologna

  Mar 2023

  • We are faced with a meticulous sound craftsman and a great artist. Saleem Ashkar polishes each note with pumice stone until it sparkles. Every single sound shines with a brilliant brilliance. It is a succession of perfect sound marbles, one after the other, as in a cascade of pearls bouncing on the floor. Each note is intelligible, linked to the previous and the next as if none of those impulsive rebounds were given to chance.

    • Oltrecultura

• Grieg Piano Concerto in A Minor

  Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

  Jan 2022

  • Ashkar’s playing was outstanding — rhythmically solid and supple, with crystalline phrasing and no fat, no excess, in his sound. For a concerto that seems to attract kitsch and glitter, his approach made it sound clean and modern. [...] In the cadenza, near the end of the opening movement, Ashkar made the flamboyant Lisztian declaration of the main theme heroic and triumphant, but with an undercurrent of self-doubt. For all the grandiosity, you could feel his inward contemplation. Throughout the concerto, Ashkar found these sorts of new facets, and rarely plumbed depths, in this familiar music.

    • Arts Atl
    • 31 January 2022

• Mendelssohn Piano Concerto No. 2

  St Louis Symphony Orchestra

  Jan 2020

  • The lovely melodies from the composer seem to flow from his head down to his fingers in such a way that, as the program notes, he seems to have three hands… nobody does Mendelssohn better than Ashkar.

    • St Louis Today
    • 31 January 2020

• Grieg Piano Concerto in A minor

  Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

  Oct 2018

  • Grieg’s Piano Concerto drew a powerful [...] account from Saleem Ashkar [Ashkar brought a] Mozartean clarity with a diamond-bright tone at the forefront of his armoury.

    • Classical Source
    • 01 November 2018

  • Saleem Ashkar delivered a poised and pleasingly nuanced performance of the ever-popular Grieg Piano Concerto. I was particularly appreciative of Ashkar’s delicacy and sensibility through the lovely Adagio central movement.

    • Seen and Heard
    • 02 November 2018

• Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1

  Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

  Sep 2017

  • [Ashkar's] Adagio and finale impressed for his insight and vigour respectively.

    • The Sydney Morning Herald
    • 01 October 2017