Hania Rani

Hania Rani (Hanna Maria Raniszewska, born September 5, 1990) is a Polish award-winning pianist, composer and musician who, was born in Gdańsk (PL) 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 on April 5^th2019, 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 on May 15^th 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 reunites her with recording engineers, Piotr Wieczorek and Ignacy Gruszecki. The tracks were mixed by Gijs van Klooster in his studio in Amsterdam and by Piotr Wieczorek in Warsaw. ‘Home’, before being mastered by Zino Mikorey in Berlin (known for his work on albums by artists such as Nils Frahm and Olafur Arnalds). 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 ‘Biała 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 Studioand 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 Orły 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 Michał Zdunik. Her song ‘Eden’ was used as the soundtrack to the short movie by Małgorzata Szumowska for Miu Miu's movie cycle Women's Tales’. Hania and Dobrawa’s ‘Whale Song’ was used in a Louis Vuitton spot and multiple Hania’s tracks were placed in a Netflix series ‘Last Chance U: Basketball’ and ‘Cheer’.

Hania has also performed as herself in documentaries Klangweber: Die Neoklassiker Ludovico Einaudi, Hauschka, Joep Beving, Hania Rani and ‘Venice - Infinitely Avantgarde’.

At the moment Hania is working on a new album, works on a few scores and prepares herself for a big international tour.