Beth Vanderborgh

Cellist Beth Vanderborgh enjoys a multifaceted career as a soloist, chamber musician, Baroque specialist, and educator. She is Professor of Cello at the University of Wyoming, Principal Cellist of the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra, Director of the UW Cello Festival, and Faculty and Co-Dean of the Castleman Quartet Program West. Her performances and recordings have earned international critical acclaim, including praise from The Strad (London) for her recording of the music of August Nölck as “lyrical and technically accomplished…eloquent and persuasive”. This year the Novana label will release her recording of works for cello and piano by Bridge, Debussy, and Vaughan Williams with Korean pianist Jiwon Han. 

An active chamber musician, Vanderborgh has collaborated with artists Lynn Harrell, Zlatomir Fung, Susan Graham, Frederica von Stade, Augustin Hadelich, Nadia Solerno-Sonnenberg, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Garrick Ohlsson, Jon Nakamatsu, and Bella Davidovich. She is a founding member of the French-based Stanislas Sextet, whose fourth recording, featuring string sextets by Schoenberg, d’Indy, and Schulhoff, was recently released on the Forgotten Records label. She also tours regularly with the Helios Trio, which made its Carnegie Hall debut in 2022. 

A committed performer of historically informed performance, Vanderborgh appears on both Baroque cello and viola da gamba. With Kenneth Slowik, of the Smithsonian Chamber Players, she recently recorded an album of cello duos by Friedrich August Kummer using the Smithsonian’s famed Servais Stradivarius and Herbert Amati cellos. Other Baroque engagements have included performances at the Smithsonian Institution, the Virginia Baroque Academy, Wyoming Baroque, the Colorado Chamber Players, and Baroque Music Montana. Her Baroque cello is a rare lion-headed cello made by Anton Wachter in 1750. 

Vanderborgh holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, the Eastman School of Music, and the University of Maryland, where she studied with David Geber, Evelyn Elsing, and David Soyer. She pursued advanced chamber music studies with members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, Cleveland, and American String Quartets, and historical performance studies with Kenneth Slowik and Louis Bagger.