Hania Rani is an award-winning Polish pianist, composer and musician who was born in Gdansk and splits her life between Warsaw, where she makes her home, Berlin, where she studied, and Zurich, where she often works. Her debut album Esja, a beguiling collection of solo piano pieces on Gondwana Records was released to international acclaim in April 2019, earning Rani two prestigious Fryderyk Awards in recognition from the Polish music industries very own Grammys. In the same year, Rani became the ‘Discovery of the Year 2019’ in the Empik Bestseller Awards whilst also earning the distinguished Sanki award for the ‘New Face of Polish Music’.
Her follow-up sophomore album, the expansive, cinematic Home, was released in May 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 with Rough Trade including it in their essential ‘Albums of the Year’.
In January 2021, Hania signed her publishing rights to Wise Music Group, where her music is represented next to names like Dustin O’Halloran, Hildur Guðnadóttir and Ludovico Einaudi. June 2021 also brought Music for Film and Theatre, a personal selection of recent compositions for film, theatre and other projects released on Gondwana Records.
Later in October 2021, together with Dobrawa Czocher they have released their duo album Inner Symphonies recorded in the beautiful Szczecin’s Philharmonic Hall and released by prestigious Deutsche Grammophon (Universal Music). Complementing the duo’s release, they also released a remastered LP edition of their album from 2015 called Biala Flaga. The stunningly beautiful and meditative album, which gains its strength in the delicate interplay between the cello and the piano, containing ten arrangements of Grzegorz Ciechowski tracks mixed with five original compositions written by Hania.
In January 2022 Hania has released the album Live from Studio S2. The tracks were recorded at Polish Radio Studio and contain rearrangements of songs from previous albums. Later in February XXIM Records (Sony Music) released Hania’s music score to the movie Venice – Infinitely Avantgarde.
The BBC Radio 4 Profile series invited Hania to be the subject of an in-depth portrait presented by Marc Coles and sees the program explore her background, inspirations and motivations to build a picture of this unique artists’ creative world. Further nominations came in 2020 from the AIM Independent Music Awards in two categories (‘International Breakthrough’ and ‘Best Creative Packaging’). In 2021 Hania has also received a Transatlantyk Golden Ark Award for ‘Best Young Polish Composer’. She was also nominated in the ‘Best Music’ category at the Orly Awards for the music she composed for I Never Cry, a movie directed by Piotr Domalewski.
Rani also composed music for a movie xAbo, directed by A.Potoczek, and for the play Nora, directed by Michal Zdunik. Her song Eden was used as the soundtrack to the short movie by Malgorzata Szumowska for Miu Miu’s movie cycle Women’s Tales.
In 2023, 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.
