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Chester Englander began playing percussion as a boy in Santa Monica, CA. He went on to study at the Interlochen Arts Academy, then the Cleveland Institute of Music. Chester performs as a regular guest percussionist with The Cleveland Orchestra and Pittsburgh Symphony, and as percussionist and cimbalom soloist with orchestras throughout the country and internationally. This list of orchestras includes the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Saint Louis Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, and many others.
Chester has played under a long list of esteemed conductors, including Pierre Boulez, Stephane Deneve, Christoph Von Dohnanyi, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Peter Eotvos, Christoph Eschenbach, Rafael Fra¼hbeck de Burgos, Alan Gilbert, Vladimir Jurowski, Lorin Maazel, Susanna Ma¤lkki, Zubin Mehta, David Robertson, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Franz Welser-Most. He has taken part in multiple world and U.S. premiere performances of orchestral and chamber works by several composers including John Adams, Thomas Adas, Louis Andriessen, Unsuk Chin, Peter Eotvos, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Dmitri Shostakovich, Mark Wigglesworth, and Bernd Alois Zimmermann. Additionally, he directly collaborated with John Adams on the composition of the featured cimbalom parts for The Gospel According to the Other Mary and Scheherazade.2., and performed as Solo Cimbalom on the GRAMMY®-nominated recording of the latter (2016).
