Saleem’s main focus in 2016/17 season has been a complete Beethoven Sonata cycle presented by the Konzerthaus and performed across Berlin and also in parallel in Prague and Osnabrück at the Morgenland Festival. Outside these recital series he has enjoyed a busy season of concerto and recital work. Starting with a concert in Verona with the Bamberger Symphoniker under Christoph Eschenbach, September also saw Saleem travelling to Luxembourg, where he played with the Orchestre Philharmonique under Nikolaj Znaider.
October saw him travelling/returning to the National Arts Center Ottawa, Canada, where he played Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3. with the National Arts Center Orchestra under Alexander Shelley.
After a concert with the DiamantEnsemblet in Copenhagen in November, Saleem travelled to Ankara for a recital at the Ankara Piano Festival.
The New Year couldn’t have seen a more exciting start than with a concert in the stunning Elbphilharmonie in the first week of its opening, playing the Clarinet Trio by Brahms alongside Yo-Yo Ma and clarinettist Kinan Azmeh, who had also composed three of the five pieces that were played that evening.
So far, spring has seen engagements with the Orchestra della Toscana in Florence, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in Poole, Orchestra Verdi in Milan a trip to the US for engagements at Cal Performances, Berkeley and to the East Coast for a residency at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island before flying back to London for his Wigmore Hall debut to a 5 star review and immediate re-invitation. Writing for The Arts Desk, David Nice said of Saleem’s performance:
The culmination of the Beethoven Sonata Cycle in June at the Konzerthaus coincided with the first double CD release with Decca of the complete cycle and we can look forward to a further 3 dics across the coming seasons.
Click here to hear Saleem talking about his new release and the culmination of his Beethoven Cycle at the Konzerthaus Berlin on Deutschlandfunk Kultur and here to listen to an interview for NDR Kultur ‘Klassik à la carte’