Comprised of pianist Fei-Fei, violinist Francesca dePasquale, and cellist Juliette Herlin, the Aletheia Piano Trio is quickly rising to acclaim for its “dazzling energy and expressivity” (Reading Eagle) and musical integrity. Praised as an “outstanding ensemble” with “confidence and understanding of musicians beyond their years” (Palm Beach Daily News), the trio was formed in 2013 at the Juilliard School and quickly gave debut performances at the Rose Studio and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York and the Terrace Theater at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. 

Highlights of recent performances include debut appearances for the Dame Myra Hess Series (Chicago, IL), Shenson Chamber Music Concerts (Washington, D.C.), PLAY the Classics at Bethel Woods (Bethel, NY), Friends of Chamber Music (Reading, PA), Macon Concert Association at Wesleyan College (Macon, GA), Concerts in the Barn (Quilcene, WA), Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach (Palm Beach, FL), Saint Vincent College Concert Series (Latrobe, PA), Shandelee Music Festival (Livingston Manor, NY), and the Busan Maru International Music Festival (Busan, Korea), which included Beethoven Triple Concerto with the Gustav Mahler Orchestra and conductor Wilson Ng. Additionally, the trio has toured China in 2018 and 2019, performing at Poly Theatres throughout the country. Recent media highlights include a live recital broadcast for WFMT (Chicago) as well as several broadcasts on Performance Today. Additionally, the trio has recently released two video recordings of the Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel piano trio and Schumann Phantasiestücke Op. 88, both available on YouTube.

Members of the trio bring together a diverse background of chamber music experience and culture, collaborating with artists such as the Brentano String Quartet, Gérard Caussé, Martin Chalifour, Paul Coletti, Glenn Dicterow, Jennifer Frautschi, Kim Kashkashian, Alexander Kerr, Ralph Kirshbaum, Ronald Leonard, Robert Levin, Anne-Marie McDermott, Robert McDuffie, Itzhak Perlman, Jean-Guihen Queyras, and Peter Takács. Additionally, they have performed as featured artists for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Bravo! Vail Music Festival, Olympic Music Festival, Manhattan Chamber Players, Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Music@Menlo, Music in the Vineyards, Philadelphia Orchestra Chamber Music Series, and Yellow Barn.  

The ensemble is named for Aletheia, the Greek concept of sincerity, which celebrates their approach to realizing musical works, as well as their connection to each other and their audiences.

FEI-FEi, piano

Infusing “intoxicating grace” with “exceptional musicality” and “inconceivable virtuosity,” pianist Fei-Fei Dong conjures an immediate and undeniable connectivity with her audiences (Badische Neueste Nachrichten). Her warm, captivating personality shines through from the moment she steps on stage, bringing joy, passion, and deep musical understanding to concerto, recital, and chamber performances.

Able to “convey impressive musical messages from deep within the music with an expressiveness hitherto unheard of” (Swiss Zofinger Tagblatt), she is acclaimed for “superb performance[s] comprised of equal parts power and nuance… compelling” (Lexington Herald Leader). Recent performance highlights include a return to Bravo! Vail Music Festival for its first Beethoven Sonata cycle; debuts with The Florida Orchestra/Rune Bergmann, Delaware Symphony/Michelle Di Russo, Oklahoma City Philharmonic/Alexander Mickelthwate, and New Hampshire Symphony/Roger Kalia; and a return with Ballet Arkansas for a cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Concerto engagements have taken her across the United States and overseas, with repertoire encompassing both the established canon and lesser-represented works, including recent performances of concertos by Florence Price, Clara Schumann, Leroy Anderson, and Xiaogang Ye. Highlights include appearances with the Fort Worth Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony, Boise Philharmonic, Aspen Music Festival Orchestra, New York Youth Symphony—with whom she performed at Carnegie Hall and toured Spain—as well as the Pegasus Symphony at Lincoln Center as part of its Rachmaninoff Concertos Marathon. Internationally, she has performed with Canada’s Calgary Philharmonic, Germany’s Rostock and Baden-Baden Philharmonic Orchestras, with the latter as artist-in-residence, and in China with the Shenzhen Symphony, Tianjin Symphony, and Hong Kong Philharmonic. She also premiered Shaosheng Li’s piano concerto Behind the Clouds with the China National Symphony at Beijing Concert Hall.

A dynamic recitalist and passionate chamber musician, Fei-Fei made her recital debuts at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center as the recipient of the William Petschek Recital Award and at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall as a winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition. Recent chamber collaborations include performances with cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras, violinist Stefan Jackiw, the Harlem and Verona Quartets, and the Merz Trio, with appearances at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and DaCamera of Houston, among others. She is a founding member of the Aletheia Piano Trio, which debuted at the Kennedy Center in 2014 and has performed across the United States and Asia, including a 19-city tour of China and performances in Korea with the Gustav Mahler Orchestra under Wilson Ng.

Fei-Fei was featured prominently as a Cliburn finalist in the documentary film, Virtuosity, about the 2013 Cliburn Competition, which premiered on PBS in August 2015. Deeply committed to sharing her joy for music and connecting with communities, Fei-Fei frequently engages students and community audiences through school and outreach concerts and masterclasses.

Born in Shenzhen, Fei-Fei began piano lessons at the age of 5. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where she studied with Dr. Yoheved Kaplinsky, and is now completing her Doctoral of Musical Arts degree at the Manhattan School of Music, where she is mentored by pianist Yefim Bronfman and serves as his teaching associate. She is also on the piano faculty at John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University. Fei-Fei is a Steinway Artist.

Celebrated for “sincerity, intensity, and individual voice” (Philadelphia Inquirer) and “immaculate and discreet phrasing” (Strad Magazine), violinist Francesca dePasquale is the First Prize winner of the 2010 Irving M. Klein International String Competition, as well as recipient of the 2014-2016 Leonore Annenberg Fellowship Fund for the Performing and Visual Arts and 2015 Classical Recording Foundation Young Artist Award. Francesca has been featured in Strings and The Strad magazine, on SiriusXM, WNYC, WQXR, WRTI, and WFMT radio, and on BIS as well as New Leaf records.

Recent season highlights include appearances with the Aletheia Piano Trio, Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston, and Jigsaw Chamber Ensemble, as well as the US Premiere of Edmund Finnis’ Shades Lengthen for solo violin and ensemble with conductor Timothy Weiss and the Oberlin Contemporary Ensemble. Additional performance highlights include appearances at Domaine Forget International Festival, Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, ChamberFest Cleveland, Geneva Music Festival, Birch Festival, Collomore Concert Series, and ATX Chamber Music, as well as the world premiere of Kenji Bunch’s Sketches for Mr. South presented by The Juilliard School and Samuel Adams’ Chamber Concerto with conductor Timothy Weiss and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble. Additional highlights include On the Blue Shore of Silence, a multimedia suite for violin, piano, electronics, and visual art by composers Gity Razaz, Gloria Justen, Sayo Kosugi, and artist Johanna Andruchovici (commissioned by Francesca dePasquale and co-commissioned by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society) and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto with conductor Raphael Jimenez and the Oberlin Orchestra.

Recent and upcoming discography releases include the Aletheia Piano Trio’s debut album, Beethoven Op. 12 and Op. 30 Sonatas for Piano and Violin with pianist Peter Takács for Leaf Music Records, and Gity Razaz’s Duo for Violin and Piano on her debut album for BIS records, recorded with pianist Scott Cuellar.

Francesca has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Riverside Philharmonic, Gustav Mahler Orchestra, the Bach Festival of Philadelphia, Colburn Orchestra, Galesburg Symphony, Peninsula Symphony, and Santa Cruz Symphony. As recitalist, she has collaborated with artists Meng-Chieh Liu, Natalie Zhu, John Root, and Reiko Uchida on series such as the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, National Sawdust, Rutgers University, the University of Pennsylvania, California Music Center, and the Perlman Music Program.

A vibrant chamber musician, Francesca has performed with renowned artists Adrian Brendel, Paul Coletti, Thomas Cooley, Jennifer Frautschi, Kim Kashkashian, Nicholas Kitchen, Ronald Leonard, Robert Levin, Pavel Nersessian, Merry Peckham, Itzhak Perlman, Jeffrey Sykes, Roger Tapping, Richard Todd, Donald Weilerstein, and Helena Winkelman. Francesca is a member of the artist roster for Manhattan Chamber Players and Chameleon Arts Ensemble. Additionally, she has performed for the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth, Open Chamber Music at IMS Prussia Cove, Friends of Chamber Music (Reading, PA), An Appalachian Summer Festival, Chesapeake Chamber Music, Music at Bunker Hill, 23Arts Initiative, Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Music in the Vineyards, and Olympic Music Festival. Additionally, she has collaborated with dancers Isabella Boylston and James Whiteside for the Fall for Dance Festival alongside composer Stefan Levin, as well as performed with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, The Knights, and A Far Cry.

Francesca is the violinist of the Aletheia Piano Trio alongside pianist Fei-Fei and cellist Juliette Herlin. Formed in 2013 at the Juilliard School, the trio gave debut performances at the Rose Studio and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York and the Terrace Theater at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The Aletheia Piano Trio has performed for the Dame Myra Hess Series (Chicago, IL), Logan Chamber Music Society (Logan, UT), Shenson Chamber Music Concerts (Washington, D.C.), PLAY the Classics at Bethel Woods (Bethel, NY), Friends of Chamber Music (Reading, PA), Macon Concert Association at Wesleyan College (Macon, GA), Concerts in the Barn (Quilcene, WA), Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach (Palm Beach, FL), Saint Vincent College Concert Series (Latrobe, PA), Shandelee Music Festival (Livingston Manor, NY), and the Busan Maru International Music Festival (Busan, Korea), which included Beethoven Triple Concerto with the Gustav Mahler Orchestra and conductor Wilson Ng. Additionally, the trio has toured China in 2018 and 2019, performing at Poly Theatres throughout the country. Recent media highlights include a live recital broadcast for WFMT (Chicago) as well as several broadcasts on Performance Today of Haydn Trio No. 39 in G major, recorded live in performance for the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach. Additionally, the trio has recently released two video recordings of the Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel piano trio and Schumann Phantasiestücke Op. 88, both available on YouTube.

In addition to performing and teaching, Francesca is the creator of Hypermobile Musician, an online resource for musicians with hypermobility and educators who wish to learn more about teaching hypermobile musicians. Hypermobile Musician provides information on the impact of hypermobility specifically for musicians, as well as guidance for successful and mindful management. For more information, visit http://hypermobilemusician.com.

Francesca is a member of the violin faculty at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, having previously served on the violin faculty for the Juilliard School Pre-College Program. Additionally, she has taught at the Heifetz International Music Institute, the Perlman Music Program, Kneisel Hall, Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, Ascent Music Festival, and Domaine Forget, and was a masterclass artist for the Starling-DeLay Symposium and American String Teacher Association. Previously, Francesca served as the Starling Fellow teaching assistant to Itzhak Perlman from 2013-2016 and teaching assistant to Catherine Cho from 2013-2018 at the Juilliard School, as well as Visiting Assistant Professor at Oberlin Conservatory of Music during the Fall of 2018. A graduate of the Juilliard and Colburn Schools, Francesca studied with Itzhak Perlman, Catherine Cho, and Robert Lipsett. Previous teachers include Hirono Oka, Charles Parker, and William dePasquale, with additional mentorship from Norman Carol and Arnold Steinhardt. 

Celebrated for her poetic and deeply communicative playing, French cellist Juliette Herlin has been recognized by Strings as a “rising star” and praised for her “impressive artistry” (San Francisco Classical Voice). She has performed across the U.S., Europe, Asia, and South America, appearing in prestigious venues including Alice Tully Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and the Musée du Louvre in Paris, and the Zhuhai and Chongqing Grand Theaters in China.

Herlin’s debut album, Dialogue: Debussy & Schumann, recorded with pianist Kevin Ahfat and released in the summer of 2025 on Orchid Classics, has garnered critical acclaim and reached the top of the classical charts with over three million streams. Hailed as an “impressive debut album” (Strings), it was awarded five stars from Diapason and featured in The Strad and Gramophone magazines.

2025–26 season highlights include a performance of Paquito D’Rivera’s Cello and Clarinet Concerto, The Journey, with the composer himself, Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the Round Top Festival Orchestra, conducted by Carl St. Clair, and recitals across the U.S. Previous highlights include Herlin’s New York Concerto debut at Merkin Hall and the North American premiere of Camille Saint-Saëns’s Third Cello Sonata as part of a recital presented by the Music Academy of the West.

An avid chamber musician, she has performed with artists such as Gérard Caussé, Martin Chalifour, Glenn Dicterow, Alex Kerr, Teng Li, Richie Hawley, Anthony Marwood, Nicolas Namoradze, Roger Tapping, and Donald Weilerstein. Herlin is the cellist of the Aletheia Piano Trio, alongside pianist Fei-Fei and violinist Francesca dePasquale. Formed in 2013 at the Juilliard School, the trio made its debut at the Rose Studio and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York, and at the Terrace Theater at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. They have since performed across the U.S., made their Korean debut with the Beethoven Triple Concerto alongside the Gustav Mahler Orchestra, and toured China in 2018 and 2019, performing in Poly Theaters throughout the country.

She has been invited to perform at prestigious series and festivals, including the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach, Yellow Barn, Shenson Chamber Music Concerts, Shandelee Music Festival, Sundays Live at LACMA, Concerts in the Barn, the Chamber Music Society of Logan, Friends of Chamber Music Reading, Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts, the Festival International Violoncello León in Mexico, and the Festival Jeunes Talents in France. Her performances have been broadcast widely on radio, including Your Classical’s Performance Today, BBC Radio 3 (UK), CBC (Canada), WFMT, KUSC, WRTI, WRR, RTBF (Belgium), NPO Klassiek (Netherlands), RNE (Spain), and France Musique (France).

Winner of the Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe String Competition, Juliette is also the recipient of first prizes at the International Vatelot/Rampal Music Competition and the UFAM Competition in Paris, as well as a Beverly Hills National Auditions winner. She has been invited to be guest principal of the Dallas Chamber Symphony, Fort Worth Symphony, and Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra. Additionally, she has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Paris Opera, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France.

As a dedicated advocate for contemporary music, Herlin has worked closely with prominent composers such as Kaija Saariaho and Jörg Widmann, and premiered many new works. Eager to discover various repertoires and explore historically informed performance, she has collaborated with jazz legend Wayne Shorter and bassist Esperanza Spalding, clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera, as well as studied baroque cello with Bruno Cocset and Phoebe Carrai.

Herlin is Assistant Professor of Cello at TCU’s School of Music and the co-founder/director of the Texas Chamber Music Institute. Additionally, she has been invited to present masterclasses at institutions such as the Manhattan School of Music, Oberlin Conservatory, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the University of Michigan, and in China, Colombia, Mexico, and Denmark. In the summer, she is on faculty at the Round Top Festival and the International Cello Institute. Admitted at the age of sixteen to the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris (CNSMDP), Herlin obtained her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees studying with Jérôme Pernoo. She pursued her studies at the Juilliard School with Richard Aaron and received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Southern California under the guidance of Ralph Kirshbaum. She plays a Pietro Pallotta cello (c. 1800 from Perugia) and is honored to be a Bärenreiter Ambassador.