Hannah Carr-Murphy is a flutist, poet, and arts administrator from Black Hawk County, Iowa. In 2016 Hannah graduated from University of Northern Iowa with a Bachelor of Music in performance and a Bachelor of Arts in English, with an emphasis in creative writing. In January 2018, Hannah received a Master of Arts in Community Music at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance within the University of Limerick. Her master’s research was a combined qualitative and quantitative study examining the participation rates of girls in high school jazz bands in Iowa. Hannah is currently a Ph.D. student in poetry and a writing instructor at Binghamton University.
During her undergraduate career, Hannah studied flute with Dr. Angeleita S. Floyd, winner of the NFA Distinguished Service Award, and Dr. Nicole Molumby, Professor of Flute at Boise State University. Hannah has performed in masterclasses on the piccolo with composers Lowell Liebermann and Blaž Pucihar. In 2012, she won the Karl L. King Solo Competition with her performance of Vivaldi’s concerto RV 443 on piccolo. Hannah toured 2009-2010 with Celebration Iowa as a singer/dancer and performed locally in municipal bands throughout her undergraduate career. While in Ireland, she played as a pit musician for local theater and sang backup for Limerick-based songwriting performer Emma Langford, winner of the 2018 RTÉ Best Emerging Folk Artist Award.
Hannah’s first chapbook was published by Quick & Dirty Press in October 2015. Her poetry has also appeared in Common Ground Review, Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, and ADANNA as well as undergraduate journals Albion Review, inner weather, and The Quaker. Her poem “Verses for my Ex-Girlfriend” appeared in the collection Exs by Final Thursday Press. Hannah’s poem “Scivias” can be found in Sean Thomas Dougherty’s Double Kiss: Contemporary Poets on the Art of Billiards, an anthology from Mammoth Books. More recently, her poem about Gabriele Fallopio was included in Alternating Current’s anthology of poems on scientists: Spectral Lines.
At North American Review, Hannah worked as editorial assistant and production coordinator on the literary magazine and as interior text designer for NAR Press. In the summer of 2015, she worked on the editorial team for sparkhouse, an imprint of Augsburg Fortress Publishing (now 1517 media). During her graduate study in Community Music, Hannah was Design Editor for University of Limerick’s student newspaper An Focal, which was shortlisted in the category of Layout/Design for 2017’s SMEDIAs.
Since losing her father to brain cancer in 2018, she has become an advocate for the brain tumor community and a fundraiser for Head for the Cure. In 2019, Hannah was the top individual fundraiser and served as captain of the top fundraising team for Head for the Cure’s Des Moines 5k fundraising event. For 2020, her team was also the top fundraising team in the region. Collectively, Hannah’s friends and family have raised over $10,000 for brain cancer research.