Winter Wonderland Performers

Violin (Paul Primus)
Violinist Paul Primus grew up in the Chicago and Cleveland areas, before attending Indiana University and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He received his Bachelors and Masters degrees in music from UWM. Paul won an audition with the Denver Symphony in 1984, and was promoted to Principal Second Violinist in 1985, the position he still holds. He coordinated the chamber music program at Denver School of the Arts from 2013-2018. Paul is a founding member of the Colorado Chamber Players, which he and his wife Barbara Hamilton began in 1993. He performs approximately 30 concerts a year with the CCP, and can be heard frequently on Colorado Public Radio. Mr. Primus has performed numerous unaccompanied violin recitals over the years, most memorably one of the complete Paganini Caprices in 1986. Paul is an active teacher in the Denver area and has also taught and performed at Eastern Music Festival, Rocky Ridge, and the Lamont Pre-College Academy at DU. He is a frequent coach for the DYAO.
Violin (John Fadial)
John Fadial has appeared on four continents as chamber musician, soloist and pedagogue. His performances have been praised by the critics. “Sparkling Technique,” L’Est Republicain “Wow! Great Stuff,” The Washington Post. He has toured internationally as a US State Department Artistic Ambassador, & served as Concertmaster of the North Carolina Opera, the Colorado Festival, Pro Musica Colorado Chamber, the Menuhin Festival Orchestra of Saumur (France), the Heidelberg Schloss-Spiele (Germany), and the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra (eighteen seasons). He has been Professor of Violin at the University of Wyoming since 2008, and in 2016 served as Visiting Guest Artist at the Conservatoire National de Nancy (France). In 2007, he was a Grammy semifinalist for best Chamber Music Performance for the CD Where Does Love Go: Chamber Music of Mark Engebretson (Innova). American Record Guide deemed his disc Chamber Music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, with English pianist Andrew Harley “not to be missed”.
Viola (Barbara Hamilton)
Barbara Hamilton is Artistic Director and Violist/Violist d’Amore with the Colorado Chamber Players, a position she has held for 28 years. She served as principal violist with Eastern Music Festival 1990-2005. Barbara played as principal violist/soloist with Colorado Symphony, Orquesta Ciudad de Barcelona & Orquesta de Valencia (Spain). She was in the New York Philharmonic for one season. Dr. Hamilton received a DMA from Yale School of Music in 1992, where she studied with Jesse Levine and taught in 1998. She was a prize winner in the Fischoff, Aspen Festival and Woolsey Hall Competitions, as well as the Young Artists of YM-YWHA (New Jersey). In the 1990’s, she toured Europe with the Orquesta Ciudad de Barcelona, the NY Virtuosi and the American Sinfonietta, concerts in the Grosse Saal/Vienna, the Concertgebauw, Leipzig Gewandhaus. She performed the complete Brandenberg Concerti with BCOC on baroque viola in 2018.
Cello (Beth Vanderborgh)
Cellist Beth Vanderborgh serves as Associate Professor of Cello at the University of Wyoming, as principal cellist of the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra, and on the Artist-Faculty of the Eastern Music Festival. She is a founding member of the acclaimed Stanislas Sextet, based in Nancy, France, and tours regularly with Musica Harmonia and the Helios Trio. She has recorded two CDs for Albany Records, both released in 2013: Chamber Music of Jennifer Higdon (“Highly recommended!” Fanfare Magazine) and Salon Music of August Nölck for Cello and Piano. Strad Magazine described her Nölck recording as “lyrical and technically accomplished, eloquent and persuasive.” She holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, the Eastman School of Music and the University of Maryland.
Harp (Lily Primus)
Houston-based harpist Lily Primus is the 2021 winner of the Mildred Milligan Scholarship Competition, and attended the Round Top Festival in 2022. She most recently has been a finalist in the Lyon and Healy Awards (2022) and received Honorable Mention in the Houston Tuesday Musical Club Ruth Burr Instrumental Competition (2022). She is a three-time prize winner of the American Harp Society National Competition (2015, 2017, and 2019) and 2020 winner of the Denver Young Artists Orchestra Concerto Competition. A rising classical music talent, Ms. Primus has attended the prestigious Young Artists Harp Program at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, along with the Young Artist’s Harp Seminar, as inaugural recipient of the Siochi Scholarship. Lily has been a frequent performer with the Colorado Chamber Players and has also performed for Colorado Public Radio. She has served as principal harp for the Denver Young Artists Orchestra, the Colorado All-State Orchestra and Western States Honor Orchestra, and the Shepherd School of Music Symphony and Chamber Orchestras. “She already demonstrates a mature sense of artistry,” says music critic Betsy Schwarm of TheScen3. Currently she attends the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where she studies with esteemed harpist Paula Page.