Hania Rani

Hania Rani is a pianist, composer and musician who was born in Gdansk and splits her life between Warsaw, where she has her home, and Berlin where she studied and often works.

Her debut album ‘Esja’, a beguiling collection of solo piano pieces, on Gondwana Records was released to international acclaim on April 5th 2019 including nominations in 5 categories in the Polish music industries very own Grammys, the Fryderyki, and winning the Discovery of the Year 2019 in the Empikchain's Bestseller Awards and the prestigious Sankiaward for the most interesting new face of Polish music chosen by Polish journalists.

Rani also composed the music for her first full length movie "I Never Cry" directed by Piotr Domalewski and for the play "Nora" directed by Michał Zdunik. Her song "Eden" was used as a soundtrack of a short movie by Małgorzata Szumowska for Miu Miu's movie cycle "Women's Tales".

Her follow-up album, the expansive, cinematic, ‘Home’, was released on May 15th and finds Rani expanding her range: adding vocals and subtle electronics to her music as well as being joined on some tracks by bassist Ziemowit Klimek and drummer Wojtek Warmijak. The album reunites her with recording engineers Piotr Wieczorek and Ignacy Gruszecki (Monochrom Studio) and the tracks were again mixed by Gijs van Klooster in his studio in Amsterdam and by Piotr Wieczorekin Warsaw ( Ombelico and Come Back Home). Home was mastered by Zino Mikoreyin Berlin (known for his work on albums by artists such as Nils Frahm and Ólafur Arnalds). For Rani, Home, is very much a continuation of the work she started on Esja, “the completion of the sentence” as she puts it. The album offers a metaphorical journey: the story of places that become our home sometimes by chance, sometimes by choice. It is the story of leaving a place that is familiar and the journey that follows it. Home opens with the fragment of the short story "Loneliness" by Bruno Schulz, which can be seen as a parable of a journey that does not necessarily mean going beyond the physical door but can signify going beyond the symbolic limits of our knowledge and imagination.

 

In February 2023, Hania Rani released her new soundtrack to the documentary “On Giacometti” directed by Susanna Fanzun. Recorded and shot in the Giacometti Atelier in Stampa, Switzerland, Hania Rani was invited by the director Susanna Fanzun to compose a selection of delicate recordings

In Hania’s own words:

“When I was asked to compose a soundtrack for a movie about the family of Giacometti I didn’t think twice. Alberto Giacometti, a Swiss artist, who worked mainly as painter and sculptor has been one of my favourite artists for a long time. His individual style, aesthetics and the character of his creative process is still fascinating to me on many levels, so being able to dive even deeper into his universe, getting to know not only him but also his family was an opportunity that I couldn’t miss.

Hania Rani’s latest album "Ghosts" (featuring Duncan Bellamy, Patrick Watson and Olafur Arnalds) was released on Gondwana Records on October 6 2023.