"Ghosts is a story about life and death, light and darkness, real and unreal. It’s an attempt to touch ultimate qualities and craft my own mythologies; to face fears, take a deep dive into things that scare me but also seduce me subconsciously. Ghosts collects all of these things together, mixing the past, present and the future into a new sound of mine.”
Hania Rani is an award-winning pianist, composer and singer. Her debut album “Esja”, a beguiling collection of solo piano pieces on Gondwana Recordswas released to international acclaim in 2019, earning Rani four prestigious Fryderyk Awards including “Best Debut Album”, “Best Alternative Album” and “Best New Arrangement”, in recognition from the Polish music industries very own Grammys.
Her follow-up sophomore album, the expansive, cinematic, “Home”, was released in 2020 on Gondwana Records and finds Rani expanding her palate: adding vocals and subtle electronics to her music as well as being accompanied by bassist Ziemowit Klimek and drummer Wojtek Warmijak. The album earned Rani another notable accolade of “Best Composer”, a further acknowledgement from Fryderyk and with Rough Trade including it in their essential “Albums of the Year”.
Her third studio album Ghosts was released in October 2023. Otherworldly yet upbeat, its mischievous melody, eloquent Rhodes piano, sparkling synths and nimble rhythms offered little indication of the New Classical style with which her acclaimed solo debut, 2019’s Esja, is sometimes associated. Over the album’s 13 tracks and 67 minutes Rani passes repeatedly and gracefully between worlds, joined sometimes by bassist and Moog player Ziemowit Klimek and Patrick Watson who breathes unearthly life into the ethereal “Dancing with Ghosts”.
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. Most recently she has composed and produced the score for director Charlie McDowell’s delicate adaptation of Tove Jansson’s classic novel The Summer Book starring Glenn Close and Anders Danielson.
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.
Hania has played concerts across the whole Europe, North America, Australia and Japan. She performed sold out show in prestigious venues like NOSPR in Katowice, Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Funkhaus in Berlin and The Roundhouse in London. In 2022 Hania was invited to Paris to perform recorded live shows for ARTE and Cercle. Spring In 2025 Hania will perform with a large ensemble at many of Europe’s most prestigious venues including Berlin Philharmonie, Salle Pleyel Paris and the Barbican London as well as a much anticipated solo performance at Sydney Opera House in March 2025.
Over the last years, Hania collaborated with many great artists – Vikingur Olafsson, Hugar, Skalpel, Portico Quartet, Christian Löffler, Niklas Paschburg, Fejka, Mari Samuelsen, Natalia Przybysz, Dobrawa Czocher, Hior Chronik, Kamp!, Igor Herbut i Misia Furtak, Mela Koteluk.
Hania Rani’s latest release is Nostalgia a beautiful live recording from Witold Lutosławski's Concert Studio at the Polish Radio in Warsaw (and one emotional perfromance from Roundhouse London) that comes packaged with a booklet of Hania’s own unique analogue photos of the studios exploring a space that is both familiar but also unique and unknown. A place of work, but something more. A place of ghosts and hidden meanings, of inspiration and mystery.
"Ghosts is a story about life and death, light and darkness, real and unreal. It’s an attempt to touch ultimate qualities and craft my own mythologies; to face fears, take a deep dive into things that scare me but also seduce me subconsciously. Ghosts collects all of these things together, mixing the past, present and the future into a new sound of mine.”
Hania Rani is an award-winning pianist, composer and singer. Her debut album “Esja”, a beguiling collection of solo piano pieces on Gondwana Recordswas released to international acclaim in 2019, earning Rani four prestigious Fryderyk Awards including “Best Debut Album”, “Best Alternative Album” and “Best New Arrangement”, in recognition from the Polish music industries very own Grammys.
Her follow-up sophomore album, the expansive, cinematic, “Home”, was released in 2020 on Gondwana Records and finds Rani expanding her palate: adding vocals and subtle electronics to her music as well as being accompanied by bassist Ziemowit Klimek and drummer Wojtek Warmijak. The album earned Rani another notable accolade of “Best Composer”, a further acknowledgement from Fryderyk and with Rough Trade including it in their essential “Albums of the Year”.
Her third studio album Ghosts was released in October 2023. Otherworldly yet upbeat, its mischievous melody, eloquent Rhodes piano, sparkling synths and nimble rhythms offered little indication of the New Classical style with which her acclaimed solo debut, 2019’s Esja, is sometimes associated. Over the album’s 13 tracks and 67 minutes Rani passes repeatedly and gracefully between worlds, joined sometimes by bassist and Moog player Ziemowit Klimek and Patrick Watson who breathes unearthly life into the ethereal “Dancing with Ghosts”.
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. Most recently she has composed and produced the score for director Charlie McDowell’s delicate adaptation of Tove Jansson’s classic novel The Summer Book starring Glenn Close and Anders Danielson.
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.
Hania has played concerts across the whole Europe, North America, Australia and Japan. She performed sold out show in prestigious venues like NOSPR in Katowice, Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Funkhaus in Berlin and The Roundhouse in London. In 2022 Hania was invited to Paris to perform recorded live shows for ARTE and Cercle. Spring In 2025 Hania will perform with a large ensemble at many of Europe’s most prestigious venues including Berlin Philharmonie, Salle Pleyel Paris and the Barbican London as well as a much anticipated solo performance at Sydney Opera House in March 2025.
Over the last years, Hania collaborated with many great artists – Vikingur Olafsson, Hugar, Skalpel, Portico Quartet, Christian Löffler, Niklas Paschburg, Fejka, Mari Samuelsen, Natalia Przybysz, Dobrawa Czocher, Hior Chronik, Kamp!, Igor Herbut i Misia Furtak, Mela Koteluk.
Hania Rani’s latest release is Nostalgia a beautiful live recording from Witold Lutosławski's Concert Studio at the Polish Radio in Warsaw (and one emotional perfromance from Roundhouse London) that comes packaged with a booklet of Hania’s own unique analogue photos of the studios exploring a space that is both familiar but also unique and unknown. A place of work, but something more. A place of ghosts and hidden meanings, of inspiration and mystery.
© Hania Rani 2023. Design by Veil Projects. Photo by Martyna Galla
© Hania Rani 2023
Design by Veil Projects
Photo by Martyna Galla