Hania Rani & Ensemble

Hania Rani

Rani, who grew up in Gdansk, Poland and currently divides her time between Warsaw and Berlin, is probably still best known for Esja, its instrumental piano pieces swiftly and widely embraced during the pandemic for a palliative beauty which BBC Radio 4’s Mark Coles described as sublime and minimalist. Her Covid era Live from Studio S2 performance video has now clocked up almost 6 million views. Nonetheless, she’s always embraced broad horizons, far broader than her strict, two-decade training as a pianist might initially suggest. Alongside her classical activities, most notably award-winning collaborations with cellist Dobrawa Czocher (released via Deutsche Grammophon), not to mention her first piano concerto, For Josima, premiered this spring, she was for a while one half of Poland’s respected alternative pop duo Tęskno. She’s also worked with other media, releasing a ‘highlights’ reel, Music for Film and Theatre, in 2021, and her scores include Piotr Domalewski’s I Never Cry, winner of the 2020 Polish Film Festival’s Best Score award, last year’s Venice – Infinitely Avantgarde and, coming later this year, Amazon’s The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart. In 2022, Hania was asked by director Susanna Fanzun to score the documentary about the artist Alberto Giacometti. Released by Gondwana Records, the soundtrack was recorded in the Swiss mountains with Hania being surrounded by snow and ice which is reflected in the delicate recordings.

Her interests extend, too, into the realms of art: last summer, for instance, visitors to Zodiak, the Warsaw Architecture Pavilion, are encouraged to enjoy Room for Listening, a sound and spatial art installation, designed with architecture studio Zmir, in which an hour-long composition is looped and streamed through 25 speakers.