In addition to his CIS duties, Hannon also is Music Director and Conductor of the Greater Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra in North Dakota. Among his upcoming engagements include appearances as guest conductor with orchestras in Illinois and Russia.

Hannon also is Director of Orchestral Activities at Iowa State University, where he conducts the ISU Symphony Orchestra and teaches instrumental conducting. A native of Battle Creek, Michigan, he began his musical studies on the violin. He received his bachelor's degree in music education from Michigan State University, where he studied violin with I-Fu Wang and Lyman Bodman and string pedagogy with Judith Palac.

Hannon earned a Master of Music degree in orchestral conducting from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, where he was also a Suzuki pedagogy student of John Kendall. He has done his doctoral studies in orchestral conducting at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a student of David E. Becker, and he has appeared as a guest conductor with a number of orchestras in the United States and Europe.

Among other major influences on his career are Tyron Greive of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Kent Perry of SIUE, with whom he studied violin, and Jorma Panula of the Sibelius Akademi in Helsinki, Finland, with whom he studied conducting.

Hannon has served as assistant professor of music and director of orchestras at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, where he also taught violin and viola. An avid educator, Hannon has held the position of music director of the Battle Creek Youth Symphony, Belleville Philharmonic Youth and Umeå Ungdomsinfoniker orchestras, in addition to serving as a clinician both within the United States and abroad.