Hannah Occeña - 2016 Award Winner  

Hailed by the New York Times as possessing “rich tone and deft technique,” flutist Hannah Porter Occeña is Principal Flute of the Topeka Symphony Orchestra (Topeka, KS); she has previously served as Principal Flute of the Midwest Chamber Ensemble (Prairie Village, KS) and Associate Principal Flute of the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra (Bismarck, ND). Occeña has performed as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, and clinician throughout the Midwest and abroad. She was a winner of the 2016 Artist Presentation Society of St. Louis auditions and has been a finalist or prizewinner in the 2014 American Prize Professional Chamber Music Competition, 2012 Royal Academy of Music flute and piccolo prizes, 2011 MTNA Young Artist Woodwind Competition, 2011 Coeur d’Alene Symphony Young Artist Competition, and 2006 WAMSO Concerto Competition. 

Occeña is a dedicated chamber musician, appearing as a duo with pianist Belle Chen, and has been on the substitute roster of the Kansas City Symphony (Kansas City, MO), Wichita Symphony (Wichita, KS), and Springfield Symphony Orchestra (Springfield, MO). She has attended New Music on the Point (2011), the Pacific Region International Summer Music Academy (2014), and the Atlantic Music Festival (2015).

Committed to the rich heritage and new horizons of the repertoire, Occeña strives to make classical works accessible and engaging to diverse audiences. She performs frequent informal lecture recitals—combining contemporary music, music technology, and standard repertoire—at senior citizens centers, participates in outreach concerts and programs for young people, and maintains a private teaching studio. Occeña was a commissioning member of the Flute New Music Consortium’s inaugural project in 2015, Confluence by Zhou Long, and will co-premiere a new work by Carter Pann in fall 2017. 

Occeña is in her first year of the DMA program in flute performance at Stony Brook University. She holds a Master of Music Dip.RAM from the Royal Academy of Music and a Bachelor of Music Suma cum laude from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance. She can be heard on New Beginnings: American and Australian Duos for Flute and Piano and Voices from the Middle with the Midwest Chamber Ensemble. Occeña is a Miyazawa Emerging Artist and plays on a Miyazawa PA-402 with an Mx-1 headjoint.