Hannah Darroch

Dr. Hannah Darroch has been described as “a musician comfortable both in the ancient and the modern – a master of musical communication, demonstrating total mastery of her instrument.” She is the Principal Flute of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, and is on faculty at the University of Canterbury’s School of Music, managing the woodwind area. 

Her genre-crossing career has included work with artists as wide-ranging as Renée Fleming, Diana Krall, and Tiki Taane. Recent appearances include a concerto at the 2019 International Conference on Mixed Music Pedagogy and IRCAM (Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique, in Paris) Forum in Montreal, a free improvisation clinic at the 2020 Jazz Education Network conference in New Orleans, a chamber music residency with the International Contemporary Ensemble at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, a Chamber Music New Zealand tour in 2022 with award-winning Canadian guitarist Steve Cowan, and another booked for 2024 with founding member of the LA Percussion Quartet, Justin DeHart. An advocate for working with living composers, she collaborated frequently with six-time Grammy-nominated percussionist-composer John Hollenbeck while living in Montreal, and is currently the resident performer-curator of the Composers Association of New Zealand’s annual conference. Committed to equity and championing music by underrepresented composers, Hannah was recently awarded a $40,000 grant from Creative NZ to commission and record four new works for flute and piano by women composers, which are now regularly broadcast on RNZ Concert. 

Hannah has performed with every orchestra in New Zealand, and can be heard on a number of New Zealand Symphony Orchestra recordings on the Naxos, EMI, and Universal labels, including the soundtrack to The Hobbit. She also features on Frank Ticheli’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated work Songs of Love and Life recorded on Klavier Records in the United States, and on Les Oiseaux, a new album by French indie-pop band Les Passagers recorded in Montreal. 

In-demand as a teacher, she has given guest classes in a range of locations across Canada, the United States, South America, Australia, and New Zealand. In 2020 she was awarded the McGill Teaching Award for her commitment to innovation and collaboration in her work on the teaching staff at McGill University in Montreal. She is currently on faculty at the University of Canterbury’s School of Music, teaching flute, chamber music, and managing the woodwind area. Hannah has been a touring coach for student ensembles preparing for the annual CMNZ Chamber Music Contest, and has worked with the woodwind sections of countless youth and community orchestras and bands, including the NZSO National Youth Orchestra. In 2022 she was invited to present a pedagogy masterclass at the Institute of Registered Music Teachers annual conference. 

She has a Doctor of Music from McGill University, a Master of Music from the University of Colorado Boulder, and an MBA through the Global Leaders Institute – a year-long programme for 30 selected musicians worldwide – where she received the Hildegard Behrens Foundation Global Humanitarian Entrepreneur Prize as one of the top graduates of 2018. Hannah now serves on the Board of the Global Leaders Institute, and recently featured in Four40, an online debate series for arts leaders under forty, discussing “The Musician as Community Builder” and the intersection of communities and the performing arts.