Hannah Hammel Maser joined the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as Principal Flute in January 2020. Before joining the DSO, Hannah held the position of Principal Flute of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra from 2017–2019.
An active chamber musician, she frequently curates and performs recitals with her DSO colleagues and has performed with chamber music organizations including Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings and New Music Detroit.
As an orchestral musician, Hannah has performed as guest Principal Flute with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and also as a guest in the sections of the New York Philharmonic, Fort Worth Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Houston Grand Opera, Richmond Symphony, New World Symphony, and the Cleveland Orchestra, including as a guest with them on a tour to Austria.
Hannah has attended summer festivals including Tanglewood Music Center, Music Academy of the West, Pacific Music Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, and Round Top Music Festival.
Hannah joined the Flute Faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2024 and served as acting Assistant Professor of Flute at Michigan State University during the spring semester of 2023. Hannah is a sought-after teacher and orchestral excerpt coach and has been invited to teach for the Oberlin Conservatory, Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, University of North Texas, University of Alabama, University of Michigan, and Interlochen Arts Academy.
Hannah regularly coaches flutists through the Sphinx Organization and was a coach for Sphinx's 2022 Audition Intensive with the New World Symphony. Hannah maintains an active private studio in Detroit and a robust virtual flute studio, consisting largely of advanced flutists auditioning for professional orchestras. Hannah is enthusiastically involved in DSO community engagement performances and educational outreach programs, including regularly working with youth orchestra members of the Civic Youth Ensembles and adult flutists in the Detroit Community Ensembles.
Hannah has been featured as a soloist with the DSO on numerous occasions, including performances of Carl Reinecke's Flute Concerto, Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, and a world premiere of Jeff Scott's Paradise Valley Serenade for wind quintet and orchestra. As a student, Hannah won first prize in the National Flute Association's Young Artist Competition, with special distinction given for the Best Performance of the Newly Commissioned Piece, and the Orchestral Excerpt & Masterclass Competition and is the only flutist in NFA history to have won all three honors. She also won first prize in the Houston Flute Club Byron Hester Competition, the Atlanta Flute Association Young Artist Competition, the Central Ohio Flute Association Collegiate Division Competition and second prize in the Mid-South Flute Society Young Artist Competition. An active member of the National Flute Association, she now serves as the Competition Coordinator for their Orchestral Excerpt & Masterclass Competition.
A native of Richmond, Virginia, Hannah began studying the flute with her mother, Alice Hammel. She holds a Bachelor of Music in flute performance and a minor in music theory from the Oberlin Conservatory (2015) where she studied with Alexa Still. She graduated with a Master of Music in flute performance in 2017 from Rice University's Shepherd School of Music as a student of Leone Buyse.
Hannah plays on an 18K gold Muramatsu flute and a Keefe piccolo. She lives in Huntington Woods with her husband, Ian, and their two labradoodles, Evelyn and Cooper.
