Hailed by the Washington Post as “prodigiously gifted… a display of imagination, taste and pianistic firepower far beyond her years,” American pianist Anna Han strives to deliver heartfelt performances through a variety of classical piano repertoire. Second prize winner of the 2023 Naumburg International Piano Competition and first prize winner of the 2023 National Federation of Music Clubs Young Artist Auditions, she has performed eleven different concerti with orchestras, over seventy solo concerts, and over a hundred chamber music recitals. Recent highlights included Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, National Concert Hall of Taipei, Newport Classical Chamber Series, Schubert Club, Performing Arts Houston, and Yellow Barn, and chamber recitals with Steven Isserlis, Kim Kashkashian, Randall Goosby, and the Verona Quartet. The current pianist in residence at the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance in Nova Scotia, she has performed over twenty solo and chamber concerts there, including nearly five hours of Beethoven’s music as part of his 250th birthday celebration, and two different solo Schumann programs. Her repertoire also includes thirty works by living composers, including Michael Brown’s Suite for Piano, which she recorded for the Steinway and Sons label.
Born in Arizona, Anna started private lessons at age five with Fei Xu, who remained her only teacher for thirteen years. She later completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at the Juilliard School under the tutelage of Robert McDonald, where she won the Bachauer Scholarship Competition, the Kovner Fellowship, and the William Schuman Prize. With the help of a grant from the Kathleen Trust, she studied briefly with Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy of Music in London, winning the Sterndale Bennett Prize. She is currently based in Berlin, where she recently completed her Artist Diploma from the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin as a student of Sir András Schiff and Schaghajegh Nostrati. More information is available at www.annahan.net
The concerts are generously sponsored by the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council and by individual donors.