is an award-winning composer and artistic director. He creates audiovisual works for performers, electronics and video, which challenge traditional notions of concert presentation and instrumental virtuosity. His work is fundamentally psychogeographical, informed by site-specific research: the layers of myth and history that he uncovers form the building blocks of his work. His compositional process begins with a set of locations, a line on a map connected by a particular theme, history, or set of constraints. He captures moments, surprises, and ultimately, like prominent London-based psychogeographer Iain Sinclair, he offers a reading of his chosen locations – a divination made through an “act of ambulatory sign-making.”
Having received a PhD in Electroacoustic Composition in 2011 from the University of Manchester, Salem has since shifted his practice in order to incorporate live performance. His electroacoustic works have been performed at festivals and concert series around the world. These works have also received several awards and nominations, including the HearSay Prize (winner, Best Sound Category, 2015), Prix Palma Ars Acustica (nominated by Radio Télévision Suisse, 2015), Concours Luc Ferrari (winner, La Muse En Circuit, 2012), Prize Phonologia (finalist, 2013), Metamorphoses (finalist, Musique et Recherches, 2012), Competition Destellos (nominated by Grand Jury, 2012), Joensuu Soundscape Composition Contest (3rd Prize, 2011), 11th Musica Viva Composition Competition (1st Prize, 2011).
His first works for live performers, the London Triptych, based upon the lives of William Blake (Not one can pass away, 2015), Austin Osman Spare (Untitled Valley of Fear, 2016), and Nicholas Hawksmoor (The Great Inundation, 2017), were written for Distractfold Ensemble. Not one can pass away has received sixteen performances by five different ensembles. Untitled Valley of Fear was premiered at Darmstadt in August 2016 and has also been performed at Café OTO and HCMF. Untitled Valley of Fear was nominated for a British Composer Award (Sound Art Category) in 2017. The Great Inundation was premiered at Cut & Splice 2017 and subsequently broadcast on BBC Radio 3. These works formed the basis of his debut portrait album, London Triptych, which is available via dFolds.
A founding member and co-artistic director of Distractfold Ensemble, Salem has written extensively for this collective (Midlands, 2019; Shadows pass the morning ‘gin to break…, 2022) as well as for Talea Ensemble (The Lovers, 2017), Ensemble Soyuz 21 (The Tower, 2019), the BBC Philharmonic, and the International Contemporary Ensemble (Of Darkness 1, 2024). He has also composed a number of solo works for leading performers, including Linda Jankowska (The Raft Breaks, 2019), Alice Purton (THIS IS FINE, 2021), Weston Olencki (Bury Me Deep, 2022), and Noam Bierstone (The Way Up & The Way Down, 2023). His recent largescale work for solo piano and electronics was composed with and for Mark Knoop. His second portrait album Bury Me Deep was released by No Hay Discos in late 2024. The composer is currently working on a new concert-length work for Montreal-based ensemble No Hay Banda. The Museum of the Lowest Place, his new work for this year’s Another Sky Festival, was supported by the PRS Foundation’s Composers’ Fund.
Distractfold Ensemble received the Kranichstein Music Prize for Interpretation from the International Music Institute in Darmstadt in 2014, becoming the first British ensemble to receive the honour. In 2017 the ensemble curated and co produced Cut & Splice in cooperation with SAM and BBC Radio 3, which culminated in a weekend festival in March 2017 and BBC broadcasts in April 2017. Salem is also a founding member and codirector of Another Sky, a new festival celebrating experimental music from the SWANA region & diaspora.
Sam lives in London and has been PRiSM Senior Lecturer in Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester since 2019. He was practitioner-in-residence at the Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Study, University of London throughout 2023.
Selected works: The Sun Warms The Memory, stereo acousmatic work (2011), Dérive, stereo acousmatic work (2013), Too Late, Too Far, stereo acousmatic work (2014), The Fall, stereo acousmatic work (2014), Residual bits of sunlight, cooperation with Andersson Dance (2014), Not one can pass away for two object operators, performative electronics, tape and video (2015), Hilmen Var, 12-channel acousmatic work (2015), neamhroinnte, generative audiovisual installation (2015), Untitled Valley of Fear for three object operators, performative electronics, tape and video (2016), The Lovers for string quintet, two object operators, performative electronics, tape and video (2017), The Great Inundation for cello, three object operators, performative electronics, tape and video (2017), London Triptych for 2–4 performers, live electronics and fixed audiovisual media (2015–17), The Raft Breaks for violin, live electronics and fixed audiovisual media (2019), Midlands for voice, electric guitar, keyboards, string trio, bass clarinet, objects, electronics and fixed audiovisual media (2019), The Tower for electric guitar, cello, percussion, live electronics and fixed audiovisual media (2019), THIS IS FINE for cello, live electronics and fixed audiovisual media (2021), Bury Me Deep for trombone, live electronics and fixed audiovisual media (2022), Shadows pass the morning ’gins to break, The starry floor, the watry shore for amplified quartet, 12 orchestral musicians and video (2022), The Way Up & The Way Down for percussion, live electronics and fixed audiovisual media (2023), Waves of crashing blackness for piano, live electronics and fixed audiovisual media (2024), Of Darkness 1 for voice / flute, electric guitar, cello, percussion and fixed audiovisual media (2024), The Museum of the Lowest Place for voice, electric guitar, violin, double bass, prepared piano, live electronics and fixed audiovisual media (2026), Everyone No-one for ensemble and electronics (2026).