Samuel Han is an eighteen-year-old pianist from Charlotte, NC, studying under Professor Alexander Kobrin at the Eastman School of Music. His former teachers include Dr. Paul Nitsch of Queens University and Dr. Dmitri Vorobiev.
He has amassed a number of accolades, such as the Vivace Award from the Vivace International Music Festival. He won first prize at the 2024 East Carolina University Young Artist Piano Competition and first prize at the Charlotte Piano Teachers Forum’s Concerto Competition. Last spring, he was accepted into the nation’s leading conservatories, such as the New England Conservatory, Juilliard, the Jacobs School of Music, and the Cleveland Institute of Music. Additionally, he has received instruction and masterclasses from such distinguished pianists as Jerome Lowenthal, Michelle Cann, Pavel Nersessian, Andrey Ponochevny, Boris Slutsky, Dmytro Choni, and Sean Chen. 
From 2022 to 2024, Samuel attended UNCSA’s precollege music program. While there, he performed Schumann Andante and Variations op. 46 with Duke Professor Jeva Jokubaviciute and UNCSA cello department chair Brooks Whitehouse. In 2022, he was selected to play Mozart Sonata k. 280 in F Major for the school’s fall dance production, “The Bloom of Youth,” which received a PBS feature. He also performed Mozart sonata in D Major for two pianos as a part of UNCSA’s annual Mozart birthday concert. Recent performances include Brahms Violin Sonata in A Major op. 100 and Schubert Songs with violinist Ellie Dixon and a solo recital at the summit at Brighton sponsored by Rebecca Penneys.
When not at the piano, Samuel enjoys Schenkerian analysis and counterpoint. He is a member of Eastman’s highly rigorous honors theory program and is also affiliated with the school’s graduate musicology colloquium. In his spare time, he loves studying Renaissance polyphony, linguistics, mathematics, European history, and poetry.