Best of the best
WEXFORD MUSICIAN HANNAH MILLER GRADUATES FROM TOP NEW YORK MUSIC SCHOOL WITH COVETED AWARD FOR ‘OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AND LEADERSHIP IN MUSIC’
EARLIER this year Hannah Miller from Fuddletown in Mayglass performed at one of the most iconic music venues in the world, Carnegie Hall in New York.
That performance, which saw Hannah play the lead French horn and take on a solo in front of over a thousand spectators, was part of her curriculum with the prestigious Juilliard School in the Big Apple.
Regarded as one of the world’s leading drama, music and dance schools, Juilliard is renowned for the quality of its graduates with only the very best accepted onto its courses.
And now a woman from Wexford has been named one of the best of the best.
Following her graduation last month Hannah received the ‘William Schuman Prize for outstanding achievement and leadership in music’ from Juilliard, selected ahead of 120 other graduates for this much-coveted prize.
Although she wasn’t able to receive the award in person, she did at least get to share the moment with her loved ones. ‘I had come home to Wexford at the end of February on my break, but ended up having to stay here because of the pandemic. There was only 10 more weeks though and it was my final year so it wasn’t too bad,’ says Hannah.
‘I graduated online and then two of the deans from the college asked me and another girl to join them for a video call. They told us to invite some family members to the call too as it was going to be good news.’
That good news was an award named in honour of a man who won the first ever Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1943, and a huge career boost for the Hannah.
‘Two of the music students out of a graduating class of 120 were awarded it. The other was a pianist, an American girl - we were actually in a chamber music group together.
‘There was an award of €1,000. And a certificate. My sister, brother-in-law and boyfriend were on the call with us, they were trying hard not to get overly excited,’ Hannah laughs.
Although she had to celebrate her graduation away from her classmates and the college itself, Hannah was determined to ensure she wore the correct attire on the big day, even if it meant improvising a little.
‘Juilliard were posting out caps and gowns to us for the graduation but mine only arrived a few days after the ceremony,’ she says. ‘So I ended up wearing a black bed sheet, like some child’s Halloween costume, and my sister Alice made a very convincing hat from an old pirate hat with some black will covered cardboard stuck on top of it, and we held a tassel-making competition which my dad won using a rope off a tent that he found in the garage. So it was quite the homemade graduation.’
Despite this major breakthrough, Hannah’s career, like most musicians, is currently on hold.
‘Obviously at the moment there’s no concerts on, so I’ve been chipping away on my parents’ farm and practising my music, at least it gives me time to play a lot,’ she says.
‘The award will be a really good thing to have on my CV, the leadership element in particular. It relates to my ability to lead in an orchestra, because i play principle horn; but I also took modules in leadership and innovation while in Juilliard.’
Hannah is hopeful that by September of this year she will be back performing in some form, with outdoor concerts a possibility as restrictions continue to ease.
Thanking her parents Keith and Yvonne for their unending support, the Dean of Juilliard, Ara Guzelimian - who actually headhunted her having seen her perform - and her teacher Julie Landsman, who nominated her for the award, Hannah also revealed that one other musical venture was not dead in the water just yet.
‘I had planned to have a classical music festival in Fuddletown this year and it was going to be called Fuddlefest. It’s been postponed until 2021, but that just means I will have more time to plan it.’