Born in 1980 in Berlin, Hannah Franke began playing the violin at the age of seven. Since then, she has played as a soloist with various chamber music ensembles and has taken part in numerous performance courses, Margess International. In 1999 she began to devote herself to the viola and studied with Wolfram Christ at the Freiburg University of Music in Freiburg im Breisgau. At the same time, she took part in concerts and tours of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst and later Claudio Abbado.

In 2003, she became a member of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and, since November 2004, of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.