Meet the musicians who make the music that makes our wonderful concerts!
Sarah Biber
has played viola da gamba and cello across the United States, Australia and China. She performed with Several Friends, a New Mexico period instrument group, at summer 2025 concerts in Santa Fe. In recent collaborations with dance, she has been featured with the Paul Taylor Dance Company, performing solo Bach with period instruments for the company’s first performance. Ms. Biber earned her doctorate from Stony Brook University after double-degree studies at Oberlin Conservatory and College and at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She relocated to Golden, Colorado in 2010, where she teaches and plays with the Baroque Orchestra of Colorado, Colorado Bach Ensemble, and Byrd on a Wire, her viol consort. Sarah plays an 1815 Lockey Hill cello and a 2015 gamba by François Danger. Sarah performs frequently with baroque guitarist Jeffrey Noonan and with St. Pete Baroque. She enjoys playing both Baroque and Modern styles. A Colorado native, she has been delighted to be a part of the growth of Early Music in this beautiful state. Sarah has performed with the Colorado Chamber Players since 2019.
Updated 2025
Sybil Bradley
is a cellist and an eighth-grade student at Creighton Middle School in Golden. Sybil was recently selected to perform in a master class for world-renowned cellist Stephen Isserlis at the Wyoming Cello Festival in Laramie. She has performed as a soloist with the Stratus Chamber Orchestra, and is the principal cellist of the Front Range Youth Symphony Chamber Orchestra. Sybil is a member of the Golden Quartet and Spectrum Ensemble. She owes a huge debt of gratitude to all her teachers, but wants to give a special shout-out to her orchestra teacher at Creighton, Jonathan West, with whom she performed Deer in the Headlights on the Elevate Education podcast.
Updated 2025
Mary Davis Cowell
has held her position as Fixed Third Chair in the Colorado Symphony viola section since 2007. She has a Professional Studies Diploma from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Jeffrey Irvine and Lynne Ramsey. In 2002, Mary earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Wyoming, where she studied with James Przygocki. Mary has performed with the Front Range Chamber Players, National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge CO, and the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson Hole WY. A favorite part of her job with the Colorado Symphony is getting to play in beautiful venues around Colorado such as Red Rocks Amphitheater, Beaver Creek, Salida, and Telluride. Mary has two children and resides in Boulder.
Updated 2025
Jennifer Diaz Spera
is a Northern California native whose educational background includes degrees in violin performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the University of Colorado Boulder. Shortly after moving to Colorado, Diaz Spera discovered the colorful world of historical performance as co-director and performer in the early music group Ensemble Pearl. A concert review describes her baroque violin and viola playing as exemplifying “incredible grace” and a “full, colorful and expressive tone. She teaches violin with Boulder Suzuki Strings and feels honored to be connected to the nurturing and growth of the next generation of musicians and humans. Diaz Spera can be heard performing with the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, Boulder Bach Festival, Seicento Baroque Ensemble, Fern Ensemble, and Quartet Aspaldiko.
Updated 2026
Barbara Hamilton
is Artistic Director and Violinist/Violist d’Amore with the Colorado Chamber Players, a position she has held for 32 years. She served as principal violist with the Eastern Music Festival 1990-2005. Barbara has played as principal violist/soloist with Colorado Symphony, Orquesta Ciudad de Barcelona and Orquesta de Valencia (Spain). She played 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 where she taught in 1998. She was a top 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, performing concerts in the Grosse Saal/Vienna, the Concertgebauw and in the Leipzig Gewandhaus. She performed the complete Brandenberg Concerti with BCOC on baroque viola in 2018. For the past ten years, Barbara has explored the study and performance of the Baroque, including performances at the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute and at the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute. She is fascinated by period instruments. Barbara has studied Baroque Violin/Viola, Viola d’Amore and performance practice with Thomas Georgi, Brandon Chui, Stefano Marcocchi, Marilyn McDonald, Peter Harvey, Jeanne Lamon, Ivars Taurins, Robert Mealy, and Cynthia Roberts. She plays on a Blaurock baroque viola and a Hopf violin. Barbara is a Wolf Trap Teaching Artist, and gives workshops at the Denver Art Museum, Denver Public Libraries, and Denver Public Schools on Music and Arts Integration into the classroom.
Updated 2025
Masakazu Ito
is recognized as one of today’s premiere guitarists, acclaimed by musicians, composers, conductors, and critics for his mastery of the instrument and its repertoire. Following his professional solo debut in Tokyo 1987, Ito won top prizes in seven major international guitar competitions, including the Andrés Segovia International Guitar Competition, the Tokyo International Guitar Competition, and the Guitar Foundation of America International Guitar Competition. A performance of Concierto de Aranjuez by Joaquín Rodrigo with the National Repertory Orchestra marked his concerto debut in 1990. Over the years, Ito has performed under the batons of renowned conductors such as Marin Alsop, Jefferey Kahane, Douglas Bostock, and others.
He has a number of recordings to his credit. In particular, London’s Classical Guitar magazine called his 1998 recording ¡España! Music from Spain “a recording of depth… most musically satisfying.” The Los Angeles Times also wrote “Ito displayed conspicuous skill and tonal range… [he] proved himself to be a clean and technically adroit player, whizzing through thorny passages with aplomb.” upon listening to his solo concert in Los Angeles in 1996.
The Japanese government has invited Ito to perform solo concerts in honor of two historic milestones – 150 years of U.S.-Japan diplomatic relations in 2003, and the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in 2015. The latter was attended by the Japanese Ambassador to the United States, representatives of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, among others. Ito makes regular trips to Spain to be featured as a solo artist during the Andrés Segovia International Guitar Festival in Segovia’s birthplace, Linares. Most recently he performed in a series of concerts in France during the summer of 2025. He currently serves as a music professor at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado, where he is the musical director and conductor of the Colorado School of Mines Philharmonic Orchestra.
Updated 2025
Wesley Leffingwell
is a keyboardist based in Denver, Colorado. He is currently pursuing his DMA in Harpsichord at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He leads the choir as Music Director at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church. Recent performances include Opera Neo’s production of Handel’s Rodelinda, Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado’s production of Hasse’s Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra, a lecture recital at the Historical Keyboard Society of North America’s conference in Colonial Williamsburg Virginia, and a solo harpsichord recital in Portland Oregon for the Western Early Keyboard Association
Updated 2026
Sandra Miller
is an active performer of the rich tapestry of musical languages from the 17th and 18th centuries. Since 2007, she has served as a core member of the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, hailed by Early Music America as having “a national reputation as a first-rate period-instrument ensemble.” As a member of the Baroque Chamber Orchestra, she has collaborated with nationally and internationally acclaimed Early Music artists on both baroque cello and viola da gamba.
Over the past twenty years, Sandy has had the pleasure of performing with many ensembles in the greater Denver area, including St. Martin’s Chamber Choir, Vittoria Ensemble, Seicento Baroque Ensemble, Kantorei, and Ars Nova Singers. She has a passion for chamber music and enjoys working with the Fern Ensemble, viol consorts, and the recently formed Aspaldiko, a string quartet dedicated to the performance of quartet repertoire using period instruments.
As a cello instructor, Sandy maintains a private studio of students aged 3-72 and serves on the faculty of the West Denver Suzuki Strings program. She holds a BA from Wesleyan University and an MM from the University of Colorado in Boulder where she studied with Judith Glyde and members of the Takács String Quartet.
Sandy performs on a five-stringed (C-G-D-A-E) baroque cello made by German luthier Walter Mahr. She can be heard on recordings with the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado including Corelli’s Circle (2018), Resounding (2020), and Bach’s Goldberg Variations, newly released in January 2026 on the Navona Records Label.
Updated 2026
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 joined the Denver Symphony in 1984, and was Principal Second Violinist from 1985 till 2024. He is now playing section violin, rotating between first and second violin. 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 20 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. As a harpsichordist, he has attended the Tafelmusik and Oberlin summer baroque institutes.
Updated 2025