THE TRIO
performances with passion, authority, grace, and zeal.
Houston is home to one of the most vibrant and energetic music scenes in the country. Emerging from this wellspring of musical talent, violinist Chavdar Parashkevov, (Houston Grand Opera and Houston Ballet), cellist Louis-Marie Fardet (Houston Symphony Orchestra), and pianist/composer Brian Suits (University of Houston's Moores School of Music) have joined their virtuosic, eclectic skills to form Houston's most exciting new chamber music group, Bayou City Trio.
The combination of Parashkevov's sparkling, immaculate brilliance, Fardet's rich, lavish tone and searching intellect, and Suit's quick fingers and stylistic versatility, make for a group with irresistible synergy. Committed to performing captivating works, bu top-drawer composers, with passion, authority, grace, and zeal: Bayou City Trio is the group you will want to hear
Praised by Strad magazine as “a romantic virtuoso with sparkling and brilliant tone and clarity of gesture,” Bulgarian violinist Chavdar Parashkevov’s diverse career has included numerous appearances with orchestra and in recital in Bulgaria, Turkey, the United States, Germany, Russia, Italy, and Denmark. Recent appearances include chamber music recitals at the Round Top Festival, Houston Museum of Art concert series, and Cypress Creek FACE Foundation. Parashkevov was awarded First Prize in the National Competition Svetoslav Obretenov in Provadia, First Prize and a special Bach prize in the “Young Talents Competition” in Sofia, Second Prize in “The Best Performance of Bulgarian Music” in Varna, and First Prize for the “Best Performance of Czech and Slovak Music” in Varna. He has released four albums, the most recent "Brahms and Shostakovich - Piano Trios," was published in 2021. Parashkevov is a graduate of the School for the Arts in Varna, and also attended SMU as well as the University of Houston. His teachers have included Peter Hristoskov, Veronica Bogaertz, Nelli Shkolnikova, Andzrej Grabiec and Albert Muenzer. He currently combines performing for the Houston Grand Opera and Houston Ballet Orchestras and teaching at the Round Top Music Festival.
Born in Rochefort, France, cellist Louis-Marie Fardet moved to Paris to attend the renowned Lycée Racine for pre-professional musicians from 1990-93. He was accepted at the Paris Conservatory in 1992, in the studio of Philippe Muller, graduating in 1996. The following two years he studied with Michel Strauss in the Perfectionnement cello class, then came to Houston and earned his Master’s Degree at Rice University. Returning to France in 2001, he became a tenured member of the prestigious Paris Opera Orchestra in 2002, six months after being appointed on a unanimous committee vote. After a five-year tenure in Opéra de Paris, Fardet moved back to Houston in late 2006, and served as Assistant Principal Cellist for the Houston Grand Opera and Ballet until 2015, when he won the fourth chair cello position with the Houston Symphony. He serves occasionally as acting principal cellist with the Houston Symphony. In recent summers he has performed at the Round Top Music Festival, and he also participated in both the 1998 and 2000 Ravinia Festival Steans Institutes. In 2000 he played in “Jerusalem Chamber Music Encounters” with Isaac Stern, and in 1999 in the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop at Carnegie Hall. In 1999 he also toured France as a soloist with La Camerata Chamber Orchestra. Fardet was a finalist in the 2001 Houston Symphony Ima Hogg Competition, a semi-finalist in the 1998 Maria Canals Sonata Competition (Barcelona, Spain), a 1996 semi-finalist in the Antonio Janigro International Cello Competition (Zagreb, Croatia), and a 1995 at the Maurice Ravel Academy. Fardet is the founder of Francoeur Chamber Music Society in Houston.
An eclectic musician, pianist Brian Suits has made a career primarily as accompanist and chamber musician, and has a broad knowledge of the repertoire both of instrumentalists and singers. He is a skilled improviser as well, and feels at home in a great variety of styles. Suits is also an occasional composer, conductor, and arranger. Among his recordings are a solo piano CD of jazz-flavored original works, and CDs with violinist Kyung Sun Lee and tenor Robert Swensen. His Piano Trio (2019) was written for the Bayou City Trio. Other compositions include concerti, chamber works, and short piano pieces. Arrangements include orchestrations for more than a dozen Korean films, including 2006 Cannes Festival favorite The Host, which was directed by 2020 Academy Award winner Bong Joon-Ho (for Parasite). Suits has conducted the French Chamber Orchestra Albéric Magnard, the Gonzaga Symphony, Nino Rota’s Italian Straw Hat at the University of Houston, and several orchestras in Korea. He taught at the Yale School of Music from 1990-2002, and currently teaches at the University of Houston as Professor of Accompanying and Chamber Music, as well as art song coach and professor of lyric diction. In summers he plays at both the University of Houston’s Texas Music Festival, and the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington, Vermont. He has also been involved with the Aspen, Great Mountains, and Banff Music Festivals. His BM is from the University of Texas at Austin, and his MM is from the University of Southern California. His teachers have included Brooks Smith, the last of violinist Jascha Heifetz’s collaborators, David Renner, Jean Barr, and Donald Grantham.
