A recent graduate of the Frost School of Music’s conducting program has been recognized with a Career Assistance Award from The Solti Foundation U.S., the only U.S. organization supporting young classical conductors.
Harris Han, who received his master’s in orchestral conducting from the Frost School in May, was elated to be chosen.
“This is a terrific honor,” Han said. “Previous winners have forged very successful careers. To win this award means that the organization feels I have a bright future. It is humbling and a source of further motivation.”
Maestro Gerard Schwarz, the Distinguished Professor of Music who leads the conducting and orchestral studies program, said the $5000 award was an excellent sign for Han. “The Solti prizes are of great significance,” said Schwarz, who has had a long, illustrious career as a conductor and music director. “The Solti Foundation does a superb job in identifying the most gifted young talents under the age of 36. All of them have continued to be accomplished conductors.”
Han seems born to make music. When he was 4 years old, his parents discovered he had the rare gift of perfect pitch, when he told his mother the pitch of their vacuum cleaner, and enrolled their son in the Neighborhood Music School in their hometown of New Haven. He studied violin and piano, picking up trumpet to play in high school bands, when he also fell in love with orchestral music after hearing symphonies by Beethoven and Brahms. While studying piano and violin performance at Ithaca College, he formed informal orchestras with his friends to try his hand at conducting.
In 2022 Han’s Ithaca College professor and mentor Grant Cooper, a former student of Schwarz’s, recommended Han for the difficult role of playing orchestral string parts on piano for brass, wind and percussion classes at North Carolina’s Eastern Music Festival, where Schwarz is music director.
Schwarz immediately recognized Han’s talent. His appreciation only grew after Han was accepted in 2023 as one of just four students in the Frost School’s conducting program.
“You could tell right away that he was extraordinary on many levels,” Schwarz said. “Not only did he play the piano wonderfully, he plays the violin wonderfully. He has a terrific ear, and he also has perfect pitch. He has a superb memory; when one conducts one wants to focus on the musicians, not the score, and one needs to have an excellent memory of what is on the page. Refining his actual [conducting] technique was easy. He’s musically and intellectually brilliant, and digests all my suggestions quickly and beautifully.”
Han flourished at the Frost School, conducting the repertory orchestra, assisting with the graduate conducting seminar and Frost Symphony Orchestra rehearsals. He performed at festivals around the U.S. (he continues to be an accomplished pianist and violinist), and joined masterclasses in Tokyo, and in Romania with renowned conductor and fellow Frost School alumnus Cristian Măcelaru, B.M. ’03, also a Solti Foundation award winner.
“I could not have made a better choice than the Frost School,” Han said. “Maestro Schwarz is incredibly generous and has enormous experience to pass on to his students. The fact that there is an orchestra just for conductors that we conduct every week is such a rarity. My current successes are because of Maestro Schwarz and the terrific program he helped create.”
Last March Han’s future seemed bright when, after a weeklong fellowship, Korea’s Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra offered him the job of assistant conductor. Han enthusiastically accepted, turning down graduate study and other opportunities. But unforeseen visa issues made it impossible for Han to take the position, leaving his calendar empty just as he was about to start his career.
Schwarz quickly stepped in, asking the director of the Aspen Music Festival—where Han had turned down a fellowship to take the Seoul job—to find a slot for him in their celebrated conducting academy. Then Schwarz, Dean Shelton G. Berg, and Shannon Kay de l’Etoile, associate dean of graduate studies, created a position for Han for the 2025-26 year, where he will assist Schwarz and continue to participate in the conducting program.
The experience has made Han even more determined to fulfill the promise of the Solti award.
“I want to become the best conductor I can possibly be,” he said. “I’ve been terrifically reinvigorated at the Aspen Festival to push myself harder and be even more expressive, clearer, and more precise with my vision on the podium. That is the only thing I can control, and wherever that takes me I will leave to the gods.”
