German-American pianist Hannah Harnest has concertized, amongst others, at the Herkules Hall (Munich), Wigmore Hall (London), Center for Jewish History and National Sawdust (New York), Harris Concert Hall (Aspen), and the Richard B. Fisher Center at Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson). She previously attended Songfest Los Angeles (2018 & 2019), Aspen Music Festival (2018), Britten Pears Young Artist Programme (2016), and Académie musicale de Villecroze (2013), and was a semi-finalist at the Wigmore Hall Song Competition together with mezzo soprano Lotte Betts-Dean in 2017. In October 2019, along with New Chamber Ballet and Mivos Quartet, Hannah performed at the “Strange Scenes Festival” at New York’s DiMenna Center, receiving enthusiastic mention in The New Yorker, New Music USA, and Seen & Heard International. In November 2020, she established the “Music for Thought Series,” collaborating with the German Consulate New York, James Conlon, Leo Baeck Institute, 1014 New York, Nicholas Roerich Museum, Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized, and Banned Art, Stefan Wolpe Society, and NYU Steinhardt’s “Beethoven the Contemporary” Festival (covered by The Washington Post and OperaWire).

In 2023, Hannah won 3rd prize together with soprano Alexandra Flood at “Das Lied” in Heidelberg, and also worked as music director and coach at Seagle Festival. In 2025, she attended Cincinnati Song Initiative’s “Fellowship of the Song”, worked as principal German coach for QSVI’s production of Hänsel & Gretel at Queens College, and performed multiple concerts with Classic Lyric Arts in Italy. Hannah also played Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand at the University of Rochester in May 2025 and was awarded the 2025 Eastman School of Music Lecture Recital Prize.

Hannah graduated with a DMA in Collaborative Piano from Eastman in December 2024, and now continues her studies as a candidate for the PhD in Musicology. Her dissertation looks at the fate of German culture in American exile during the Holocaust as seen through the intersection of text and music.