Mykhailo Markovych Kanerstein (26 July (8 August) 1902, Kyiv, Russian Empire - 8 February 1987, Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, USSR) was a Ukrainian Soviet conductor and music educator.
Mykhailo Kanerstein was born in 1902 in Kyiv.
In 1915-1919, he worked in the orchestra of the Mykola Sadovsky Theatre. In 1924, he graduated from the Mykola Lysenko Kyiv Music and Drama Institute with a degree in violin from Naum Skomorowski, and in 1925, he studied symphony conducting with Mykola Malko. Since 1919, as a student, he played the violin in the orchestra of the Kyiv Opera and Ballet Theatre, and in 1924-1929 he was the concertmaster of the viola group there.
In the summer seasons of 1926-1929, he conducted the symphony orchestra in the resort of Sosnivka (now the district of Cherkasy). In 1929-1930, he was the conductor of the State Ukrainian Travelling Opera.
From 1927 (with interruptions) he taught at the Kyiv Concert Hall.
In 1930-1935, Mykhailo Kanerstein led the newly created symphony orchestra of the Kyiv Regional Radio Committee, in 1935-1937, after the capital of the Ukrainian SSR was moved from Kharkiv to Kyiv, he worked as a conductor of the Ukrainian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and in 1937-1941 he led this collective.
In the 1938/1939 season, Mykhailo Kanerstein was the chief conductor of the Odesa Philharmonic.
During the war of 1941-1945, he was evacuated to Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), where he taught at the conservatoire in 1941-1943. In 1943, he became an associate professor at the Faculty of Military Conductors of the Moscow Conservatoire.
In 1944-1949, he was the conductor of the Kyiv Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra.
In 1944, he returned to teaching at the Kyiv Conservatory, was promoted to professor in 1973, and in the 1980s headed the newly created Department of Opera and Symphony Conducting.
He died in 1987 in Kyiv.
His son is Oleksandr Kanerstein (1933-2006), a Soviet and Ukrainian composer, music teacher and pianist.
Creative work
He promoted the music of Levko Revutskyi, Borys Liatoshynskyi, Reinhold Glier, Mykhailo Verikivskyi, Mykhailo Skorulskyi, Andrii Shtoharenko (in particular, he prepared and conducted 23 of his original concerts), and Heorhii Maiboroda.
He performed together with violinist David Oistrakh, cellist Mstyslav Rostropovich, pianists Emil Hillels, Leopold Munzer, singers Zoya Gaidai, Borys Hmyria, Mykhailo Romenskyi and others.
Mykhailo Kanerstein gave the premiere performances of Levko Revutsky's Symphony No. 2, Boris Lyatoshynsky's Slavic Piano Concerto, Mykhailo Verikovsky's symphonic poem Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny, Mykhailo Skorulsky's Steppe Poem, and Heorhiy Mayboroda's symphonic poem Lily.
He has performed with symphony orchestras in Kyiv and other cities of Ukraine, orchestras in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tbilisi, Yerevan, Baku, Chisinau, Voronezh, and Rostov-on-Don.
He is the author of books and articles on the theory and technique of conducting, including the textbook "Questions of Conducting" (Moscow, 1965; Kyiv, 1972). His students were Oleksiy Gulyanytskyi, Eduard Serov, Volodymyr Kozhukhar, Yevhen Dushchenko, Allin Vlasenko, Roman Kofman, Larysa Bukhonska, Felix Komlev, Mykhailo Sechkin, and Konstantin Yeremenko.
