Hailed by the New York Times as possessing “rich tone and deft technique,” Hannah Porter Occeña is a versatile flutist and pedagogue equally comfortable performing music written 400 years or 40 minutes ago. The 2021 Mu Phi Epsilon International Competition Winner and 2012 Irene Burchard Prizewinner, her performance work ranges from intimate solo performances in the recording studio to sold-out orchestra festival concerts. She holds principal flute positions in the Topeka Symphony Orchestra (Topeka, KS) and Colorado MahlerFest Orchestra (Boulder, CO) and teaches a vibrant studio of undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Northern Iowa (Cedar Falls, IA). 

As an orchestral player, chamber musician, and soloist, Dr. Occeña has worked to bring to life hundreds of new works. She gave the world premiere performances of flute concertos by Arturo Rodríguez and Joseph Kern, and the European premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s “The Light That We Can Hear.” She has privately commissioned several works, including the prizewinning work the whirring dusk by Lisa Bost-Sandberg (2018), and was a co-commissioner for Confluence by Zhou Long (2015), Giantess by Carter Pann (2018), Amazonia by Valerie Coleman (2020), Intuition by Samuel Zyman (2022), and Pathways of Desire by Reena Esmail (2024). 

Committed to reaching audiences around the world, Dr. Occeña is an active recording artist whose performances can be heard on major music streaming services. She specializes in recording recently published works as well as student-accessible works outside the standard canon, often in collaboration with her duo partner, pianist Emely Phelps. In addition to traditional venues and recorded performances, Dr. Occeña performs outreach concerts in schools, non-traditional venues such as nature preserves and state parks, and at events specifically designed for neurodiverse audience members. Some of her favorite concert experiences have been performances in association with Autism Speaks and at special education schools.

Dr. Occeña is a frequent presenter at regional and national conventions, and her articles have been published in North American, British, and Dutch flute journals. She contributed to new editions of the Sonata in B minor by Amanda Maier and the Sonata op. 94 by Sergei Prokofiev, and she has researched and performed unpublished works by Undine Smith Moore and Gertrude Rivers Robinson from the composers’ manuscripts. 

Dr. Occeña is a 2018 DMA graduate of Stony Brook University, where she studied with Carol Wincenc. She holds a Master of Music Dip.RAM from the Royal Academy of Music and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance. When not performing, Dr. Occeña enjoys distance running and spending time outdoors with her family. Dr. Occeña is a Miyazawa Artist and plays on a Miyazawa Elite.