Award-winning composer Han Hitchen (b. 1997) writes for a wide range of genres, including various acoustic settings, and electroacoustic works for fixed media and live processing. Their music is informed by their experiences as a queer person, and draws inspiration from socially taboo topics that Han hopes to bring attention to, such as menstruation cycles, family discourse, death/mortality, and reproductive rights.

Hitchen’s music has been presented at several events across the globe, including MUSLAB’s International Exhibition of Electroacoustic Music, the Penn State New-Music Festival and Symposium, MuSE Sound of Arts Festival, the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), the Osaka University of Arts Electroacoustic Music Festival, Electroacoustic Barn Dance (EABD), Electronic Music Midwest (EMM), and the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF). His music has been performed throughout the United States, as well as Ecuador, South Korea, Japan, and Mexico.

Han has collaborated with several performers, ensembles, and organizations, including Matchstick Percussion, saxophonist Luke Kranyak, the Penn State Percussion Ensemble, the Penn State Graduate Brass Quintet, Project Fusion Saxophone Quartet, the Penn State Philharmonic Orchestra, RE:duo, pianist Eunmi Ko, flautist Francesca Arnone, the University of South Florida Flute Studio, and Hypercube.

Their work for brass quintet and percussion quintet, blending, won the 2024 Penn State Ensemble Call for Scores, and will be premiered by the Penn State Graduate Brass Quintet and Percussion Ensemble in April 2024. feeding fire – a work for stereo fixed media – is included on MUSLAB: Planeta Complejo, a CD produced by Cero Records. Their work for orchestra, Fog, won the 2022 Penn State Ensemble Call for Scores, and was premiered by the Penn State Philharmonic Orchestra in February 2022. In May 2021, their piano work Ursus maritimus was featured as a part of Eunmi Ko’s SPAM! project on I Care If You Listen and Neuma Records. In March 2019, Hitchen’s fixed media work Hot Oil won the Terroir New Music Call for Scores, and was performed at Terroir 009: Adjunt. In the spring of 2018, Hitchen was awarded a Merit Award for Electronic Music from the University of South Florida School of Music.

Hitchen recently graduated with a Master of Music in Composition and Theory from Penn State University, where they studied with Baljinder Singh Sekhon, II and Sarah Genevieve Burghart Rice. He also holds a Professional Performance Certificate (PPC) in Composition and Music Technology from Penn State University, and a Bachelor of Music in Acoustic and Electronic Composition from the University of South Florida.

In addition to composing, Hitchen works towards the upliftment of living and marginalized artists, and works to cultivate spaces for the LGBT+ community. During his time at Penn State, Hitchen served as Vice President for Living Music, an organization dedicated to the performance and promotion of music by living composers hosted at Penn State. He was also the co-director for the 2023 Penn State New-Music Festival. Hitchen also participated in programs at Penn State’s Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, including serving as the graduate facilitator for the discussion group Beyond the Binary, and being a graduate mentor as a part of the LGBTQ Mentorship Program. In Summer 2022, Hitchen worked as a research intern with Boulanger Initiative, a nonprofit organization that advocates for and promotes women and gender marginalized composers through performance, education, research, consulting, and commissions. Han's responsibilities included assisting in the research of women and gender marginalized composers throughout history, as well as updating and expanding a database of women and gender marginalized composers. Additionally, he was co-host to Lost to Time, a podcast that shines light on accomplished composers, musicians, and other artists whose works are underrepresented, despite their fruitful careers. During his time at the University of South Florida, Hitchen served on the executive boards for New-Music Consortium at USF and USF’s Trans+ Student Union.