Proclaimed by The New Yorker as "The Man to Call When You Need a Cimbalom. (A What?)", Chester Englander has introduced the sonic and emotional power of the cimbalom into the mainstream consciousness. Acclaimed for his "unnerving dexterity" (San Francisco Chronicle), his "boldly played" (Los Angeles Times), "vivid" (The New York Times), and "expert" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) performances as the solo cimbalom of John Adams' Scheherazade.2, and praised by the NYT for the "brilliant clarity" of his performance of the featured cimbalom part within Mr. Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, Chester has built a varied career as a percussionist and concert cimbalom player with creative institutions throughout the country. 

Chester has performed on percussion and/or cimbalom with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, the Metropolitan Opera, the National Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the San Diego Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Opera, the San Francisco Ballet, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Oregon Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Nashville Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Louisville Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony, the Iceland Symphony, the Israel Philharmonic, and the New World Symphony. 

Chester has served as a regular associate musician with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Nashville Symphony. Chester has also toured internationally or within the U.S. with The Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Saint Louis Symphony and the Toronto Symphony. 

Chester has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Nonesuch, Naxos, Interscope, Cantaloupe, and The Cleveland Orchestra and Seattle Symphony house labels. Chester has also recorded for multiple Sony PlayStation games, as well as major film and TV projects. 

Chester has taken part in multiple world and U.S. premiere performances of orchestral and chamber works by several composers including John Adams, Thomas Adés, Louis Andriessen, Unsuk Chin, Peter Eötvös, Douglas Knehans, Oliver Knussen, György Kurtág, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Dmitri Shostakovich, Mark Wigglesworth, and Bernd Alois Zimmermann. Additionally, he directly collaborated with John Adams on the development of the featured cimbalom parts for oratorio The Gospel According to the Other Mary, symphony Scheherazade.2., and his latest opera, Antony and Cleopatra. 

Chester has served as Lecturer of Percussion at Cleveland State University and as guest faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music.