Salma Khakimov

Salma Khakimov (she/her) is an aspiring young musician who shows equal love and interest towards both the piano and the violin. She has won multiple awards at provincial and national competitions since she was 5 years old.

In 2019, Salma was accepted to the Phil and Eli Taylor Music Academy for Young Artists, and in 2021-2025, she was generously offered full scholarship tuition. In 2021, Salma participated in the OMNI Competition and won the Yannick Né zet-Sé guin Grand Prize, with a $2000 scholarship. In addition, she won 1st place at the Ontario Music Festivals Association (OMFA) provincials Gr. 10 RCM.

During the COVID–19 pandemic, Salma and her brother Karim, a flautist, organized a series of online concerts and charity events that were live-streamed to friends and music lovers worldwide. Salma also regularly performs at recitals, outreach concerts and local retirement homes.

In 2022, Salma became a semi-finalist in the International Classicalia Music Competition in Vienna, Austria. In the same year, Salma won two Canadian concerto competitions, including the Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artist Concerto Competition and the North York Concerto Competition. Following that, she was awarded 3rd place in the CMC National Finals in Quebec City in the 11-14 age category. Additionally, Salma and her friends from Taylor Academy formed the Sacora Trio and, in 2024, organized a charity concert for Ukraine and raised over $2,500 to support children suffering from the war. They also have been awarded the National Mary Hildebrand Award by the Alliance for Canadian New Music Projects and the Canadian Contemporary Showcase. Later in the year, Salma became a member of the TSYO in the 2024-25 season, and in the following year she was given the role of concertmaster.

In 2025, she advanced to the finale of the Burlington New Millennium Concerto Competition, where she was awarded 2nd place, and won 1st place in the NYCO Concerto Competition, where she played the entirety of Wieniawski's 2nd Concerto. Also, the Sacora Trio won the Grand Prize at the Canadian Music Competition’s National Final in 2025, and will play Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the Toronto Urban Orchestra in November of the same year. As well as that, she was invited to play at the Caledon Music Festival in August as a part of their Youthful Passions Side-by-Side concert series, where she played Bach’s Double Violin Concerto with the acclaimed violinist Luri Lee, and Mendelssohn’s String Octet along with other young artists.

While Salma envisions that classical music will be woven into her future professional life, her versatile interests include reading, history, learning guitar, and environmentalism, and she constantly works on expanding her intellectual and spiritual horizons. Salma currently plays a 19th-century Georges Chanot violin on loan from the Royal Conservatory of Music, and she studies violin with Marie Bérard, a renowned violinist and concertmaster of the Canadian Opera Company.