The Spirit and The Maiden: Helios Trio Performers

John Fadial has appeared on four continents as chamber musician, soloist and pedagogue. His performances have been praised by the critics. “Sparkling Technique,” L’Est Republicain “Wow! Great Stuff,” The Washington Post. He has toured internationally as a US State Department Artistic Ambassador, & served as Concertmaster of the North Carolina Opera, the Colorado Festival, Pro Musica Colorado Chamber, the Menuhin Festival Orchestra of Saumur (France), the Heidelberg Schloss-Spiele (Germany), and the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra (eighteen seasons). He has been Professor of Violin at the University of Wyoming since 2008, and in 2016 served as Visiting Guest Artist at the Conservatoire National de Nancy (France). In 2007, he was a Grammy semifinalist for best Chamber Music Performance for the CD Where Does Love Go: Chamber Music of Mark Engebretson (Innova). American Record Guide deemed his disc Chamber Music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, with English pianist Andrew Harley “not to be missed”.

Cellist Beth Vanderborgh serves as Associate Professor of Cello at the University of Wyoming, as principal cellist of the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra, and on the Artist-Faculty of the Eastern Music Festival. She is a founding member of the acclaimed Stanislas Sextet, based in Nancy, France, and tours regularly with Musica Harmonia and the Helios Trio. She has recorded two CDs for Albany Records, both released in 2013: Chamber Music of Jennifer Higdon (“Highly recommended!” Fanfare Magazine) and Salon Music of August Nölck for Cello and Piano. Strad Magazine described her Nölck recording as “lyrical and technically accomplished, eloquent and persuasive.” She holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, the Eastman School of Music and the University of Maryland.

Praised by Fanfare Magazine for her “astonishing” and “poetic piano playing” and “symphonic, expansive texture of breathless virtuosity” (Historical Keyboard Society), pianist Chi-Chen Wu has appeared as recitalist, chamber musician, and concerto soloist in the United States, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, China, Thailand, the Aspen Music Festival, Monadnock Music Festival, and the Boston Early Music Festival Fringe Concert Series. Her concerts have been broadcast on NPR’s Simply Grand Concert Series and NPR-From The Top in Boston. Musicians and conductors with whom she has concertized include Karl-Heinz Steffens, Jonathan McPhee, Zuill Bailey, members of the Juilliard String Quartet, Takács String Quartet, musicians from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Boston Symphony Orchestra and New York Philharmonic. Chi-Chen’s newest album of Schumann Fantasie and Carnaval has won a silver medal in the Global Music Awards.