Hannah Marks is a bassist, bandleader, and educator living in Bloomington, IN. Hannah’s main project is her own band, Heartland Trio. She also plays bass in several local bands and ensembles, including ExWo, the Post Modern Jazz Sextet, Monika Herzig’s Whole World in Her Hands, the Terre Haute Symphony, and the Columbus Philharmonic. She has played with Walter Smith III, Ingrid Jensen, Delfeayo Marsalis, and Ann Hampton Callaway.
Hannah is a junior Jazz Studies (Double Bass) major at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, where she studies with Jeremy Allen and Todd Coolman. In addition to her own projects, she currently plays in the Tom Walsh Big Band and is a former member of the IU Soul Revue. She hails from Des Moines, IA, where she got her start playing in monthly Des Moines Community Jazz Center jam sessions and attending Synergy Jazz Foundation Workshops.
By the time she graduated high school, she played regularly with the Max Wellman Quartet, the Plymouth Church Saturday Night Band, and the Dave Bohl Quartet. She was selected for the Dave Brubeck Colony in 2014; she had other eyeopening experiences from attending the Centrum Jazz Workshop, the Jamey Aebersold Jazz Workshop, the University of Northern Iowa Jazz Camp, and the Simpson Jazz Camp in high school. Hannah is passionate about sharing her love of music with a range of communities. She is involved in arts education, non-profit work, and community outreach across the Midwest.
Marks is currently an intern for the Hyde Park Jazz Festival and Girls Rock! Chicago. She also interned with the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic in 2016 and Civic Music Association in 2015. She taught bass lessons and music theory at the Girls Rock! Des Moines camp and mentored at-risk elementary and middle school girls involved in Chrysalis Foundation’s after school programs in 2014. Recent studio work includes a folky full-length album “Refuge from the Storm” with the Plymouth Church Saturday Night Band, an ECM-inspired demo for Butterfly Dreams, and a punk album from singer songwriter Keaton Butler