Born in 1976 in Nazareth, Israel, pianist Saleem Ashkar is a double minority in his home country: he is of Palestinian Christian background. His younger brother, Nabeel Abboud Ashkar, is a noted violinist. Both brothers are alumni of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (the name is taken from an Arab-themed volume of poetry by Goethe), founded by conductor/pianist Daniel Barenboim in 1999 as a vehicle for promoting Arab-Israeli cooperation through classical music. Saleem Ashkar also had encouragement from conductor Zubin Mehta, who programmed a performance of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23, with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra when Saleem was 17. Ashkar went on for studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where his teacher was Maria Curcio, and at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover, Germany, with Arie Vardi.

Ashkar has appeared with Israel's major symphonic ensembles and has appeared at Carnegie Hall in New York with Barenboim as conductor. He has given recitals in Berlin, Frankfurt, Florence, Brussels, Oslo, and Chicago, and has appeared at festivals including the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, the Morgenland Festival in Osnabrück, and France's La Roque d'Anthéron piano festival.

Ashkar was signed to the major Decca label and released his debut album, a recording of Beethoven's first and fourth piano concertos, in 2013, following that up with a recording featuring Mendelssohn's two concertos the next year. In the mid-2010s, Ashkar's recitals increasingly focused on Beethoven's piano sonatas, a project that coalesced into a plan to record a complete new cycle of Beethoven sonatas for Decca. The first release in that cycle, including the Piano Sonatas Nos. 3, 5, 14, and 30, appeared in 2017.

Ashkar divides his time between Berlin and Israel, where he formed and serves as artistic director of the Galilee Chamber Orchestra; the group's 32 members are drawn from both Jewish and Arab Israeli populations. ~ James Manheim, Rovi