Violinist John Fadial serves as Professor of Violin and Head of Strings at the University of Wyoming. At the age of eleven, he performed for President Gerald Ford and since has appeared around the globe as chamber musician, soloist, and pedagogue. His performances have been praised by the critics. “Sparkling Technique,” L’Est Republicain (France) “Wow! Great Stuff,” The Washington Post “Gorgeously rendered!”, New York Concert Review. He has toured four continents for the US State Department as a United States Artistic Ambassador, and has served as Concertmaster of the North Carolina Opera, the Colorado Festival, ProMusica Colorado, the Menuhin Festival Orchestra of Saumur (France), the Heidelberg Schloss-Spiele (Germany), and Greensboro (NC) Symphony Orchestra (eighteen seasons). Additionally, he has served as Associate Concertmaster of the Eastern Festival Orchestra, appearing as both concertmaster and soloist, under the direction of Gerard Schwarz since 1999.
Fadial has given performances and master classes at prestigious institutions and universities around the globe, including recent engagements as Visiting Guest Artist at Arizona State University, the University of South Carolina, Interlochen Arts Academy, the French National Conservatory of Nancy, France; Beifan University in Yinchuan, China; and the Conservatory of Oviedo, Spain. He serves on the artist faculty of the Eastern Music Festival, violinist of the Eastern Chamber players, and director of the Violin Internship Program at EMF, and collaborates regularly with many of the world’s leading musicians including Gerard Schwarz, Jennifer Higdon, and Libby Larsen. He is the violinist of the University of Wyoming’s critically acclaimed Helios Trio. He has held professorships at West Virginia University and the University of North Carolina, and his students have won teaching and concertmaster positions from Brazil to Broadway, from Colorado to the Carolinas, and include five MTNA National Finalists, from multiple US regions.
Fadial has appeared in concert on the stages of the Aspen, Banff, Bowdoin, Brevard, Colorado, Eastern, Grand Marais and Sarasota summer festivals, and has performed recitals in venues from France’s Salle Poirel to the Smithsonian Museum, the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, and Carnegie Hall in New York. He has shared the chamber music stage with violinists Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Elmar Oliveira, and Martin Beaver; violists John Graham, Victoria Chang, and Roger Tapping; cellists Astrid Schween, Alban Gerhardt, Bernard Greenhouse, and Lynn Harrell; and pianists Jon Nakamatsu, Joseph Kalichstein, Garrick Ohlssohn, and Bella Davidovich, among others. He has received critical acclaim for live NPR broadcasts performances of the great, symphonic concertmaster solos, including Brahms Symphony No.1, Dvorak G major, Dvorak Cello Concerto, Mahler Symphonies 3, 4, and 6, Puccini La Bohême, Shostakovich Symphony No. 5, Richard Strauss Til Eulenspiegel, Ein Heldenleben, Also Sprach Zarathustra, and Capriccio, and Rimsky-Korsakov Capriccio Espagnole, Russian Easter Overture, and Scheherazade. Recent Seasons have included performances of Bach, Sibelius, Brahms, Bruch, Dvorak, and Lee Actor Violin Concertos and well as the Vivaldi Four Seasons and complete Brandenburg Concerti of J.S. Bach.
As a recording artist he 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; and in 2009 he released a disc of the Complete String Sextets of Johannes Brahms (RadioFrance) with the Stanislas Sextet of Nancy (France), of which he is a founding member. His disc of the Chamber Music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor with English pianist Andrew Harley was deemed “not to be missed” by American Record Guide; and he and the duo recently completed a recording of the Brahms Sonatas for the Centaur label. His disc of the Chamber Music of Jennifer Higdon, produced in collaboration with the Pulitzer Prize winning composer was released on the Albany label in 2013. In 2016 Fadial embarked on a recording project of string sextet repertoire with the Nancy-based Stanislas Sextet in celebration of their 20th season. Discs released so far include world premier recordings of new Sextets by Georges, Sauget and Fadial on the Forgotten Records label. 2023 will see his recording at Cornell University of the complete works for violin and piano of Gabriel Fauré, with pianist Chi-Chen Wu, using an 1860 Erard keyboard. The release on MusicOmnia/Naxos will coincide with the 2024 centennial of the composer’s death.
Of Fadial’s recording of the Complete Brahms Sonatas (Centaur, 2019), Peter Burwasser of Fanfare writes, “Rich tone and elegant phrasing…John Fadial gives us, dare I say, cleaner readings than those from Stern. 5 Stars: a fresh rendition by a pair of elegant artists….” “(Fadial) moves effortlessly among the composer’s subtle moods, voicing sentiment, melancholy, wistfulness and joyful lyricism with utter naturalness…5 Stars: …these could hardly be bettered” (Huntly Dent, Fanfare).
Dr. Fadial holds degrees from the North Carolina School of the Arts, the Eastman School of Music, and the University of Maryland. His teachers have included Jerry Cadek Lucktenberg, Elaine Richey, Charles Castleman, Arnold Steinhardt, Zoltan Szekely, and Joseph Silverstein. Mentors have included Jan DeGaetani, Abram Loft, Joseph Gingold, members of the Beaux Arts Trio, and members of the Cleveland, Juilliard, and Guarneri String Quartets. He has played with the Colorado Chamber Players since 2017.