"lucid, velvety tenor
and pop-star charisma"
-BBC Music Magazine
2019 GRAMMY® Award Winner,
Best Classical Solo Vocal Album
NEWS
Karim Receives Another GRAMMY® Nomination!
Mary Kouyoumdjian and Royce Vavrek’s Adoration received a 2026 GRAMMY® Award Nomination for Best Opera Recording.
Karim Created the role of Sami in the opera based on Atom Egoyan’s film of the same name. He shares the nomination with composer/Producer Mary Kouyoumdjian, Soprano Miriam Khalil, Mezzo-soprano Naomi O’Connell, tenor Omar Najmi, Baritones Marc Kudisch and David Adam Moore, and conductor Alan Pierson
the recording was released on Bright Shiny Things, captured from Live Performances of the world premiere run at the Prototype Festival.
Photograph by Erin Baiano
‘What Belongs to You’ Captures Critics Prize for Best New Opera
David T. Little’s opera, What Belongs to you, written for Karim and Alarm Will Sound is the winner of the 2025 Award for Best New Opera by the Music Critics Association of North America.
Karim’s “embodiment of The American was a tour de force as he sang a long and vocally demanding score moving almost continuously, weaving his way among the musicians.”
Karim Triumphs as Pelléas
Karim scored huge success in his role debut as Pelléas in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. the new production at the Longborough Festival earned 5-star reviews from International Critics, singling out Karim’s “smooth richness” of tone and “alluring subtlety and bursts of rapture.”
Opera Canada hailed: “the Charismatic Lebanese-American tenor Karim Sulayman was a compelling, naively pure and open-hearted Pelléas… Sulayman’s voice is delicious: smooth, Elegant and attractively coloured.”
while the Guardian lauded: “Karim Sulayman’s light-voiced Pelléas sounds almost improvised in its conversational fluency, but his tenor flowers in moments of passion.”
Production Photography by Matthew William-Ellis
The international cast included Kateryna Kasper as Mélisande, Brett Polegato as Golaud, Julian Close as Arkel, Catherine Carby as Geneviève, and Nia Coleman as Yniold. Directed by Jenny Ogilvie and conducted by Anthony Negus.
Chandos Records Releases the Chamber Music of Reynaldo Hahn with the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective
Karim’s dear friends and frequent collaborators, the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, have released an album of Reynaldo Hahn’s music, featuring new chamber arrangements of some of the composer’s most beautiful songs. The Arts Desk named Karim and Kaleidoscope’s performance of French Chamber Music (including these songs of Hahn) at wigmore Hall one of the best Concerts of 2022
NYT Feature on
'What Belongs to You'
David T. Little’s highly Anticipated opera, WHAT BELONGS TO YOU, based on the novel by Garth Greenwell has been featured in the New York Times ahead of its premiere at the Modlin Center in Richmond Virginia. The Opera, a Monodrama for Tenor and chamber orchestra, was written for Karim Sulayman and Alarm Will Sound. The world premiere production will be directed by Mark Morris.
Photograph by Maansi Srivastava for The New York Times
Photograph by Camilla Greenwell
Broken Branches Earns Massive Critical Acclaim and a GRAMMY® Nomination!
Broken Branches was nominated for the GRAMMY® Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. This is Karim’s second nomination in this category.
The album has enjoyed heaps of commercial success and critical acclaim, debuting at #1 on the UK Classical Charts, being named one of the Best Classical Music Albums of 2023 by the New York Times, and one of the Best albums of the 21st Century so far by BBC Radio 3!
BBC Radio 3 Record Review: “Pretty near Perfect.”
Gramophone Magazine (Editor’s Choice): “A fascinating, highly personal project.”
San Francisco Classical Voice: “A sophisticated album that raises questions about identity and cultural exchange…these are beautiful performances.”
BBC Music Magazine: “Lively Charisma and a vibrant array of musical colour…wonderful piquancy and dynamism.”
Presto Music (Recording of the week): “One of the most communicative singers I have heard for some time.”
Karim and Sean have traveled the world with this program, stopping in New York City, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, Ghent, Rotterdam, Washington, D.C., Boston and Aldeburgh, among others. They look forward to continuing their collaboration bringing this universally beloved program to Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Wigmore Hall in 2026.
Broken Branches Released on Pentatone Records!
Karim’s third solo album, a collaboration with guitarist Sean Shibe, has been released on Pentatone Records.
Tenor Karim Sulayman and guitarist sean Shibe present Broken Branches, a conceptual album with music ranging from Dowland, Monteverdi, Britten, Rodrigo, Takemitsu, Harvey, and Chaker to traditional songs from the Middle East, scrutinizing the close cultural and musical ties between East and West. This musical exploration ties in with the artists’ personal experience of a dynamic, in-between identity, as they grew up in the West having ethnic roots in the East (Lebanon and Japan respectively). Broken Branches explores the wood of the guitar and its relatives, as well as the splintering of history known as diaspora.
Photograph by Camilla Greenwell
Photograph by Leigh Webber
