Pianist Michael Chertock has fashioned a successful career as an orchestral soloist, collaborating with conductors such as James Conlon, Jaime Laredo, Keith Lockhart, Erich Kunzel and Andrew Litton. His many orchestral appearances include solo performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, l’Orchestre Symphonique du Montreal, the Toronto Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Naples Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, the Chattanooga Symphony, the Utah Symphony, the Oregon Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony and the Dayton Philharmonic. Chertock made his debut at the age of 17, performing the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 with Andrew Litton conducting.
In January of 2005, Chertock performed Gershwin’s Concerto in F Major with Maestro Lockhart and the National Youth Orchestra of London. Chertock has toured Asia with the Boston Pops, and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. His 2003 performance on the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Petrouchka with Paavo Järvi turned in rave reviews in Gramophone and American Record Guide. Chertock made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1999 with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, performing Duke Ellington’s New World A’Comin’. In June 2005 with the Boston Pops Orchestra, Chertock performed the world premiere of a work by Todd Machover, commissioned by the Boston Pops expressly for Mr Chertock.
Claude Gingras of La Presse, Montreal, said of pianist Michael Chertock: “Chertock revealed himself as a first-rate pianist and an interpreter of noticeable interest through the freshness that he brought to these familiar scores....(he) displayed the sensitivity of a Chopin interpreter.” The Boston Globe has called his playing “unmannered, zestful, and lovely.” The Cincinnati Enquirer has described the Virginia native as “intelligent and disciplined...noble...finely finished...expressive and well-controlled.” The Salt Lake City Deseret News said “Chertock... is a musical performer with an immense technical command of the piano.”
In 1994, Chertock released his first CD on the Telarc label, a collection of his original arrangements of music from movies entitled Cinematic Piano. American Record Guide said “(Chertock) plays beautifully, and Telarc’s lush sonics bathe the listener in an intoxicating wash of piano sonorities.” Cincinnati Enquirer critic Janelle Gelfand called it “one of the most gorgeous discs of the summer”, citing his “elegant techniques...just the right poetic tone.” The recording has sold more than 30,000 units worldwide. Since then, he has recorded three more discs with Telarc: Palace of the Winds, Christmas at the Movies and Love At the Movies, which have been praised for their lush, original arrangements and exquisite technical facility.
Chertock began conducting in 2001 when he stepped in for Maestro Carmon De Leone in performances of Cincinnati Ballet’s The Nutcracker. Chertock is the conductor of the Blue Ash-Montgomery Symphony, located in suburban Cincinnati, Ohio, and he frequently composes and arranges music for the orchestra’s concerts. In 2008, he conducted the Columbus Symphony (Ohio) in performances of The Nutcracker with Ballet Met Columbus.
In June of 2004 Chertock was appointed Assistant Professor of piano at the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, where he received his Master’s Degree as a student of Frank Weinstock. He has garnered numerous awards at major competitions, among them the top prize in the 1989 Joanna Hodges International Piano Competition (Brahms Division,) and the grand prize in the 1993 St. Charles International Piano Competition. He also shared the silver medal in the 1991 World Piano Competition of the American Music Scholarship Association. He received the Rildia B. O’Bryon Cliburn Scholarship in 1986.
Chertock makes his home in Cincinnati with his wife Maaike, son Joshua and daughters Maria and Janneke. Most Sundays you can find him playing piano and organ for services at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church.