GEORGI CHERKIN (1977) is one of the most outstanding Bulgarian pianists of his generation. He was born in Sofia into a family with musical traditions. He graduated from the the Lubomir Pipkov National Music School in the class of Antonina Boneva. In 1996 he was admitted to the Prof. Pancho Vladigerov National Music Academy in Sofia in the class of Prof. Atanas Kurtev. In the following year he enrolled at the Accademia Santa Cecilia in Rome, where he specialised with Sergio Perticaroli. During that same period he also studied with Karl-Heinz Kemerling at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.
He won first prizes at the Pancho Vladigerov International Competition in Shumen, Premio Sassari in Italy and Young Musical Talents in Sofia.
He has given concerts at the Auditorio in Rome, Musikhalle in Hamburg, Convention Center in Okinawa, Kaufmann Concert Hall in New York, Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, etc. His repertoire includes the major concertos for piano and orchestra, most of which he has performed with Sofia Philharmonic, the Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bilkent Symphony Orchestra in Ankara, Santa Cecilia Orchestra, Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra, Rousse Philharmonic Orchestra, Classic FM Radio Orchestra, Vratsa Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonietta-Vidin.
His extensive concert activity includes piano recitals in Rome, Paris, Berlin, Prague, Warsaw, Bratislava, Moscow, etc. He has participated in the Europalia Festival in Brussels, the European Music Festival, the Days of Bulgarian Culture in Russia, etc. He has received applause on the prestigious music stages of the Berlin Philharmonic, at the Gewandhaus Hall – Leipzig, at the House of Music in Moscow, etc. The pianist is one of the four soloists in the project Jazz meets Classical, presented in 2016 and 2017 in Sofia and London.
In recent years, Georgi Cherkin has been actively engaged in composing and orchestrating, his main concept being to enrich well-known piano works with the diverse palettes of symphonic sound. His transcriptions for piano and orchestra of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons, and Brahms’ Variations on a Theme of Paganini are popular.
2023 saw the world premiere of his Galaxy Concerto for piano and orchestra. A year later, inspired by the symbiosis between vision and music, he presented his new project, the Galactic Fantasy concert-spectacle, soloing with the Secret Orchestra. The first part featured paintings from artist Georgi Andonov’s “Queens” exhibit with 3D mapping projection to the sounds of Beethoven’s beloved masterpieces “Moonlight Sonata” and Debussy’s “Moonlight” (in Cherkin’s arrangements), and the second part featured “The Galaxy Concerto” with luminous images of distant galaxies and constellations.
Georgi Cherkin is the recipient of many awards for his contribution to the development of art, including the Crystal Lyre, Golden Century, Golden Muse, Golden Quill, etc.
