On Saturday’s encore broadcast, we feature 18-year-old violinist Hannah Lin of Rolling Meadows. She recently graduated from Fremd High School in Palatine and studies violin with Desirée Ruhstrat.
In 2015 and 2017, Hannah won first place in the Chinese Fine Arts Society Competition and was the category winner of the Early Music division of the 2015 Walgreens National Concerto Competition, as well as a category winner in the 2018 Sejong Music Competition. She was awarded honorable mention in the Crain-Maling Foundation Chicago Symphony Orchestra Young Artists Competition in 2017. In 2018, Hannah won the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition and performed as a soloist with the orchestra in November at the Chicago Symphony Center.
From 2016 to 2018, Hannah was involved with chamber music as the first violinist of Quartet Callisto. In both 2017 and 2018, the group was awarded in the Discover National Chamber Music Competition and was selected as a quarterfinalist in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. In 2018, the quartet was a finalist in the Saint Paul String Quartet Competition, the third prize winner in the M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition, and second prize winner of the WDAV Young Chamber Musicians Competition in North Carolina.
A member of Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras since fifth grade, Hannah has served as concertmaster for CYSO’s Debut and Concert Orchestras and currently serves as co-concertmaster in Symphony Orchestra. In the District 7 ILMEA orchestra, she served as assistant concertmaster in 2015 and as second principal violin in 2016. In 2017, Hannah was second principal violin of the Illinois All State Honors Orchestra.
Hannah regularly performs violin at nursing homes, and outside of her musical endeavors, she served as editor-in-chief of Fremd’s school newspaper. She will attend Columbia University in the fall.
