About Me
Gersh Chervinsky is a professional concert violinist and violin teacher based in Rockville, Maryland. Gersh is the second-award winner of the Cremona Festival and Competition (Italy, 2012), and was a participant in the London Purcell School Music Festival (England, 2013), and the Keshet Eilon Festival (Israel, 2019).
He has performed with star musicians such as Joshua Bell, Norman Kreeger, Sarah Daneshpour, Amit Peled and others.
Gersh collaborates with the Washington Bach Consort, Alexandria Symphony Orchestra, and the Apollo Orchestra as the associate concertmaster. Trained at the Moscow Conservatory, Jacobs School of Music, and Peabody Institute of Music, he exhibits the finest traditions of modern and baroque violin playing.
Gersh is an enthusiastic educator. He has extensive teaching experience. He taught college students at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music as an associate instructor of violin. He also taught exceptionally gifted pre-college students at the IU Summer String Academy. Currently, he is a string faculty member at The International School of Music and maintains his private studio in Rockville.
His Artistic Background
As a teenager, Gersh was fascinated with the biographies of the greatest violin personalities like Jacob Dont, Joseph Joachim, Leopold Auer, Abram Yampolski and Yuri Yankelevich. His professor, Marina Keselman, continues this noble lineage of outstanding violin teachers. During his studies in the Moscow Conservatory, she instilled the value of striving for the highest professional standard, and personally exemplifies the very definition of excellency.
Professor Keselman gave Gersh the system of violin exercises, techniques and routines,as well as the knowledge of instructive and artistic repertoire progression. She taught that violin playing is a rational and conscious process, rather than momentous inspiration. He learned that violin playing is an old craft – a refined artisanry.
After moving to Bloomigton, Indiana, Gersh was introduced to a different approach to violin playing under the instruction of Professor Grigory Kalinovsky. It was violin as poetry, bow movements as brush strokes of a painter. Professor Grigory Kalinovsky’s focus was on the beauty of each separate sound. He taught Gersh how to extract a separate note from a piece, make it beautiful, and how to assemble the mosaic of these beautiful sounds into a composition.
During his studies in Jacobs School of Music, Gersh grew increasingly involved in historical performance practice. Professor Stanley Ritchie opened a new door in his music journey – Baroque Music. He taught that music can be played in a carefree manner, and that a violin performance should be like declamation.
Gersh earned a performance degree in Baroque Violin with Professor Risa Browder. She introduced him to the great number of compositions and deepened his knowledge of historical performance practice.