François Salque, cellist chair at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris (CNSDMP) and the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne (HEMU), is a highly-acclaimed, multiple award-winning performer. He has won international competitions such as Lausanne (unanimous first prize), Geneva (second prize), ARD Munich, Tchaikovsky in Moscow, and many more. In France, he won first prize at the Homage to Paul Tortelier and Maurice Gendron International Competition and the Pierre Fournier Prize.

François has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in over fifty countries with some of the world’s most renowned artists (Jean-Claude Pennetier, Alexandre Tharaud, Michel Portal, Paul Meyer, Emmanuel Pahud, Itamar Golan, Renaud Capuçon, Barry Douglas, Gil Shaham, among others). Furthermore, he has played as a soloist with such prestigious orchestras as the Münchner Rundfunk Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Moscow chamber orchestra, Saint-Petersburg Camerata, the Baltica Chamber Orchestra, the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Berner Philharmonic as well as many French Orchestras.

His recordings for BMG RCA, Arion or Lyrinx with pianist Eric Le Sage and Alexandre Tharaud were highly acclaimed and received many awards.

For five years he was a member of the Ysaye String Quartet with which he played over 400 concerts and recorded seven CDs. More recently he founded the Quatuor Strada string quartet, together with Pierre Fouchenneret (violin), Sarah Nemtanu (violin) and Lise Berthaud (alto violin).