Biography

David Chernaik was selected as one of three participants in the LSO Discovery Conducting Masterclass Scheme with Sir Colin Davis, conducting the London Symphony Orchestra at LSO St. Luke's on 22 January 2009.

He was born in the USA, and has been resident in the UK since 1972.  He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge and the Juilliard School, New York, and has enjoyed a successful career as both conductor and cellist.  He participated in a Shostakovich masterclass in Russia with Iloh Yang, and has participated in conducting masterclasses with Jorma Panula and the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, and in Neeme Järvi's Summer Academy in Estonia, where he worked with Neeme Järvi, Paavo Järvi, Jorma Panula, and Alexandr Dmitriev, conducting the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and the St. Petersburg Academic Symphony Orchestra.  He has also attended conducting workshops organised by the American Symphony Orchestra League in New York and Boston, where he worked with Daniel Lewis and Gustav Meier. 

David Chernaik founded the Apollo Chamber Orchestra in 1989, and has built the orchestra into one of London’s finest chamber orchestras, attracting large audiences to its annual concert series in London.  Its highly successful association with Poems on the Underground has resulted in several new commissions, many concerts and two CD recordings.  Recent concerts include a programme including Schumann’s “Rhenish” Symphony, a concert of Berio, Britten, Mozart and Stravinsky, a concert of Brahms, Dvorak and Tchaikovsky, an annual candlelit Messiah and a concert featuring the first performance of David Chernaik’s new completion of Mozart’s Mass in C Minor.  The orchestra is now starting the fifth year of an innovative education programme in Hackney primary schools, led by David Chernaik, which includes school visits, orchestral workshops and a schools' concert at Hackney Empire.

David Chernaik made his international conducting debut in Denmark, in a concert broadcast live on Danish Radio, and made his Scottish debut with a performance of Handel’s Messiah at Edinburgh Festival Theatre.  He conducted the modern premiere of L'amore industrioso by João de Sousa Carvalho in his own performing edition at Holland Park Theatre in London, and conducted further performances in Oporto in July 2000 as part of the celebrations of Porto - European City of Culture 2001, followed by a concert performance at St. John’s, Smith Square, London in April 2001.  He prepared and conducted a semi-staged concert performance of Granados' rarely heard opera Goyescas in London in 2002, which was enthusiastically reviewed.