UW Department of Music Presents Helios Trio Valentines Day Concert

The combination of piano, violin and cello music will be performed during a Valentine’s Day concert featuring the Helios Trio Wednesday, Feb. 14, at 7:30 p.m. in the University of Wyoming Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts recital hall.

Presented by the UW Department of Music, the free public performance will feature Beethoven’s trio for piano, violin and violoncello, Op. 1 No. 1; Brahms’ trio for piano, violin and violoncello, Op. 8; Elgar’s “Salut d’Amour”; and Gershwin’s “Embraceable You.”

Composed of UW Department of Music faculty, the Helios Trio includes Chi-Chen Wu, piano; John Fadial, violin; and Beth Vanderborgh, cello. Founded in 2014, the trio has a diverse background as performers, combining to produce interpretations of repertoire for violin, cello and piano. In 2015, the trio served as Artists-in-Residence for the Music for a Great Space series in North Carolina, performing concerts and working with talented young musicians.

A native of Taiwan, Wu came to the United States for graduate school in 1999, studying with some of the nation’s most celebrated pianists. Her performances have been praised in newspapers around the world, and she has collaborated with such well-known chamber musicians as Takacs String Quartet and the Julliard String Quartet. Wu has appeared as recitalist, chamber musician and concerto soloist in the U.S., Canada, France, Spain, Japan, Taiwan, China and also at the Aspen Music Festival, Monadnock Music Festival and Mayfest Chamber Music Festival. She has made several recordings.

Fadial has appeared on four continents as chamber musician and soloist. He has toured internationally for the U.S. State Department as a United States Artistic Ambassador, and has served as concertmaster of the North Carolina Opera, the Colorado Festival, the Menuhin Festival Orchestra of Saumur, the Heidelberg Schloss-Spiele, the Eastern Music Festival and Greensboro Symphony Orchestra.

As a recording artist, Fadial was a semifinalist for the Grammy Award for best Chamber Music Performance of 2007 for the CD “Where Does Love Go: Chamber Music of Mark Engebretson” on the Innova label.

Vanderborgh has performed on four continents, including recitals at the Kennedy Center, the Phillips Collection, the Teatro Nacional in Costa Rica and the American University in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. Vanderborgh’s recent recordings include discs of the “Chamber Music of Gwyneth Walker” for the Albany label and “Chamber Music of Jennifer Higdon” -- in collaboration with the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer -- also for Albany. She serves as artist faculty of the Eastern Music Festival and principal cellist for both the Cheyenne Symphony and Shenandoah Bach Festival.

For more information, call Kathy Kirkaldie, UW Fine Arts coordinator, at (307) 766-2160 or email kirisk@uwyo.edu.