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Wed 09 Sep 2009'I am a pianist, not a spokesperson'
Palestinian-Israeli pianist Saleem Abboud Ashkar grew up in Nazareth. For an Arab child in an Arab city, piano lessons were not just unusual, they were unheard of, so why was he obsessed with the instrument, asks ARMINTA WALLACE
IT WOULD BE easy to introduce the Palestinian-Israeli pianist Saleem Abboud Ashkar by reciting the usual litany of the classical artist. He “made his debut at Carnegie Hall at the age of 22”; “has worked with some of the world’s most renowned conductors”; “released a recital CD of Brahms, Mozart and Schubert on the EMI label in 2005”. But Abboud Ashkar, who’s coming to Dublin to play at the National Concert Hall with the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra, introduces himself in a rather more unusual way.
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