Hailed by critics as “a cellist of very great significance,” “brilliant and deeply moving,” Susan Salm received her earliest musical training in her native Chicago and later studied at the Juilliard School in New York with Leonard Rose and Harvey Shapiro and in master classes of Pablo Casals, Gregor Piatigorsky, and Pierre Fournier. As prizewinner of the coveted Concert Artists Guild Award, Ms. Salm was presented in her New York debut at Carnegie Hall.
Since then she has appeared as soloist with major orchestras, including l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the BBC Orchestra, the Berlin Symphony, Orchester der Frankfurter Museumsgesellschaft, Orchester des Norddeutschen Rundfunks, Bruckner Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony appearing with conductors Leonard Slatkin, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Otmar Suitner, Gunter Wand, and Erwin Ortner.
Ms. Salm performs solo recitals in the major cities of the US, the UK and Europe: in Vienna, London, Trieste, Venice and Bolzano, Italy; in the major halls of Munich, Stuttgart, Oslo, Copenhagen, Cologne, Frankfurt, Budapest, Krakow, Paris, Brussels, Zurich and Geneva. In the United States, Ms. Salm appears in New York, Washington, D.C., Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cleveland, Denver, Dallas, Miami, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Chicago.
As both soloist and chamber musician her participation in international music festivals includes the Wiener Festwochen, Vienna Mozart Festival and Klangbogen (Vienna); Saratoga, Newport, Marblehead, Dartmouth, Ouray, Aspen, Angel Fire, the Beethoven Festival of San Francisco, Chenango, and Juneau Jazz and Classics (US); the Spitalfields and Sheffield Festivals and the Wigmore Hall Beethoven Festival (UK); Montepulciano Cantiere d’Arte and Cortona (Italy); and the festivals of Budapest and Berlin.
Ms. Salm records frequently for the BBC, ORF (Vienna), South and North German Radio, Hessisch Radio, Radio France, Zurich and Basel Radio, Brussels Radio and the Suisse Romande, as well as for NPR in the US.
A dedicated chamber musician, she is a founding member of the Raphael Trio and has collaborated with members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, Cleveland and Emerson String Quartets. She gives master classes and chamber music courses at universities and conservatories.
Ms. Salm has recorded for Nonesuch, Sonar, Newport Classic, EMS, Unicorn, ASV, Discover, SNE and SONY and for radio and television in the US, the UK, and Europe.
Composers who have written solo works for Ms. Salm include Dina Koston, Wolfgang Florey, Laura Kaminsky, and Rainer Bischof.
She is the director and co-founder of the Raphael Chamber Music Workshop in Wilton, New Hampshire.