Hania Rani

Composer, pianist and vocalist. Together with Dobrawa Czocher she co-founded the band Tęskno. She is associated with the record companies Gondwana Records and Deutsche Grammophon. Winner of four Fryderyk Awards and an award in the Main Competition of the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia.

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Hania Rani (Hanna Raniszewska) was born in Gdańsk. She started learning to play the piano at the age of seven. Apparently, four years later she already began experimenting with other styles of music. In 2009, she graduated from the Feliks Nowowiejski Music High School. Raniszewska graduated from the piano class at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw and continued her education through postgraduate studies in Berlin.

Melodies, arrangements, songs

Her first encounter with the song form was a collaboration with the band Domowe Melodie – Raniszewska’s arrangements can be heard on both their albums Domowe Melodie (2012) and 3 (2014). Cellist Dobrawa Czocher, Hania Rani's friend since music school and later collaborator, also worked with the now-defunct band.

Together they recorded the album White Flag (2015) with instrumental arrangements of Grzegorz Ciechowski’s songs, prepared by Raniszewska. Her arrangements are not revolutionary; they do not radically change the musical ideas contained in the songs written by Ciechowski. Where did the idea for such an album come from? Dobrawa Czocher comes from Tczew, the hometown of the leader of Republika and Obywatel GC – she grew up on his music. Tczew hosts the annual In Memoriam festival – it was there that they first presented their material. In an interview for Twój Styl magazine, Rani recalled a concert at which, for the first time, she could present her original arrangements to a wider audience:

I remember how nervous I was before that concert. But I don't remember much of the performance itself, because it was so windy that we had to improvise by attaching the notes to the music stands with laundry clips. Today I think I wouldn't be where I am without that project.

From 2017 to 2019, together with singer Joanna Longić, she formed the band Tęskno. The artists met a few years earlier on the Internet – Longić asked Raniszewska to compose music for her wedding. Later, the pianist helped her to work on her own material. Eventually, they decided to form a band together. On the album Mi (2018) skilful arrangements and delicate but catchy melodies are accompanied by an attempt to achieve a sound that fascinates Raniszewska – a sound that we can hear on albums by Nils Frahm or Ólafur Arnalds. One can try to describe them with words such as: 'dreamy', 'fuzzy', 'ethereal'. Tęskno achieved the intended results; no wonder, after all, the album was mixed by Michał Kupicz, who is regarded as one of the most talented Polish music producers. Bartek Chaciński described the project in Polityka magazine:

Hania Rani and Joanna Longić bring the classically understood chamber music to the Polish pop scene by the handful – the whole set of songs was perfectly arranged for voices, piano and string quintet.

In 2019, Tęskno was nominated for the Fryderyk Awards in the category 'Phonographic Debut of the Year'. Their debut album was named 'Album of the Year' by the listeners of the Radiowy Dom Kultury programme in Radio Trójka and by the Interia.pl portal. It also received the Artistic Award of the City of Toruń named after Grzegorz Ciechowski. Hanna Raniszewska left the band Tęskno in autumn 2019.

Hania Rani has also created songs with other performers. In 2018, she recorded the instrumental and vocal part for the song Drunk by Kamp! A year later, she added piano and vocals to the ambient song What If I created by Tomasz Bednarczyk, who works under the artistic name New Rome. The same year saw the release of her three songs composed for Misia Furtak for the album What Will Come?. In 2020 she recorded the song Odprowadź (Piano Version) with Mela Koteluk – the song received a Fryderyk Award in the category 'Best New Performance'.

Esja, Home

In 2019, Hania Rani recorded her debut album titled Esja. It was released on the UK label Gondwana Records. How did Rani release her debut album on such a well-known label? The pianist simply sent them her demo (in fact, there was enough material for several records). They wrote back the very next day. 'I don't know if that happens often, or if I’m just born with a silver spoon in my mouth', she later said in an interview. The album was recorded on two Yamaha pianos, in Rani's Warsaw flat and in Reykjavik. In one track you can hear Ólafur Arnalds' piano – Rani found it in the studio of her friend Bergur Þórisson. The title of the album refers to Mount Esja, which can be seen from almost every point in Reykjavík.

Esja was very warmly received by the audience and critics. Michał Wieczorek wrote on the Soundrive portal:

'Esja' is simply beautiful. Captivating and soothing with its beauty, and Hania Rani shows herself on it as a mature, self-aware composer and pianist.

A year later she released the album Home, also on Gondwana. This time we heard a much wider range of instruments – apart from the piano, there are electronics, double bass, strings and percussion as well as the composer’s voice. 'Subtle synths, double bass parts and a song-like narration making us rethink the eternal motif of travelling', wrote Mirosław Pęczak in Polityka magazine.

Hania Rani alludes to the sounds developed by American minimalists, ambient, film music composers and contemporary electronic music. It is usually very repetitive, calm music. Often devoid of surprising climaxes, although it does not lack dramatic tension. In her recordings she pays attention to the sounds of the environment; she doesn't mind the sound of a worn piano mechanism. Why does Hania Rani reach for such aesthetics? In one interview she said that minimalism is for her: 'a retreat from the chaos, the clutter, the abundance of information that bombards us every day'. In an interview conducted by Joanna Barańska she said:

My musical search shows what I also lack in life: calmness, attention, reflection or precisely tenderness, for example in sound. Even in today's difficult pandemic times, I lead a rather hectic life: fast, full of difficult decisions, involving travel and being away from home. And music is my safe haven. There is certainly a lot of tenderness in it, because you can never get enough of that. I also treat music as a record of what is really important. And it won't be the awards, but the fact that we spent a wonderful time with someone, that we fell in love, that a child was born. Those are the things that move us. We don't write songs about the fact that we got an Oscar.

Music for Film and Theatre

An important part of Hani Rani’s activity is composing music for theatre and film.

She wrote the music for Wojciech Kuczok’s play Pradziady produced for the Television Theatre directed by Michał Zdunik in 2018. In 2020 we could hear her music in Henrik Ibsen’s Nora, also directed by Zdunik, staged on the Polish Stage of the Cieszyn Theatre.

In 2020 we could hear her music in three films: xABO: Father Boniecki by Aleksandra Potoczek, Altered States of Consciousness by Piotr Stasik and As Far as Possible From Here by Piotr Domalewski. She has also composed music for several short films. About her work on the music for the documentary about Adam Boniecki, she said:

We tried not to get too sentimental or nostalgic. It was a big challenge for me, for two months I dealt with a kind of reduction and rearrangement of this music.

Achievements

Hania Rani has given concerts in many European countries; she has also visited Japan (her music is very popular there). She has performed in many prestigious concert halls, including the Warsaw National Philharmonic, Funkhaus in Berlin, The Roundhouse in London, the Open'er Festival in Gdynia and Eurosonic in the Netherlands.

In 2018, the band Tęskno received the Grzegorz Ciechowski Artistic Award of the City of Toruń. A year later, a moment after the release of the album Esja, Hania Rani won the music plebiscite Sanki, whose patron is Robert Sankowski, who died in 2017, a music critic associated for years with the editorial office of Gazeta Wyborcza. The album Home became the album of the year in Gazeta Wyborcza’s polls. In 2020, Hania Rani won the Fryderyk Award in the categories: Album of the Year Alternative, New Performance (with Mela Koteluk), Phonographic Debut of the Year and Composer of the Year (tying with the composer duo Dawid Podsiadło/Olek Świerkot). She was also nominated in the Producer of the Year category. The composer also received an individual award at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia for the music to As Far as Possible From Here.

In June 2021, Hania Rani and Dobrawa Czocher signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. Clemens Trautmann, Director of Deutsche Grammophon said:

Hania and Dobrawa are some of the most versatile and inventive artists of today – they are rooted in the classical genre, but also draw inspiration from various other musical and visual forms. Working together for over a decade, they have created a unique and moving sound, with perfect harmony and dynamic tension between piano and cello. We are very excited about their collaboration with Deutsche Grammophon, which will include not only the release of their latest collaborative album but also the re-release of their debut album 'White Flag'.

In 2022, Hania Rani and Dobrawa Czocher received the Opus Klassik award for Best Music Video of the Year for Malasana (directed by Mateusz Miszczyński). A year later, Rani was awarded a Fryderyk in the category of Album of the Year – Film, Theatre and Illustrative Music.

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Hania Rani & Dobrawa Czocher – Malasana (Official Music Video)

In 2023, she also received the Polityka Passport in the Popular Music category ‘for leading a wide audience into territories not previously associated with mass appeal’. The following year, she won further Fryderyk awards as Producer of the Year and Artist of the Year.

In 2025, she composed the score for Sentimental Value, which premiered at the 78th Cannes Film Festival. The film by Norwegian director Joachim Trier was met with a 19-minute standing ovation and received the festival’s second-highest honour, the Grand Prix (with Juliette Binoche serving as jury president). At the European Film Awards, Hania Rani won in the European Composer (Original Score) category. The film emerged as the evening’s major winner, taking home the award for Best European Film. Additional honours went to Renate Reinsve (Best Actress) and Stellan Skarsgård (Best Actor), while Joachim Trier received awards for both Best Director and Best Screenwriter (shared with Eskil Vogt).

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SENTIMENTAL VALUE - Official Trailer - In Theaters 11.7

On 14 November 2025, Rani released the album Non Fiction – Piano Concerto in Four Movements. Drawing on the classical form of the piano concerto, the work was recorded at Abbey Road Studios with the 45-piece orchestra Manchester Collective conducted by Hugh Brunt. In announcing the album, the composer revealed its key inspirations:

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The album was composed in part in response to the works of a young prodigy, Josima Feldschuh, discovered in 2020, written amid the horrors of World War II in the Warsaw Ghetto. Moved by her story, I wanted to reflect on it through the lens of the present-day horrors in Ukraine and Gaza, and on how we witness them through digital technologies – and how this new proximity shapes our response to violence.

In February 2026, Hania Rani's Sentimental Value soundtrack was released as an album to positive acclaim, with multiple reviewers remarking that it works as a freestanding album without the requirement of the film. On 8 June 2026, during the Ephemera Festival in Warsaw, Rani was awarded the Gloria Artis Medal for Merit to Culture, which at age 35 put her as one of the awards younger recipients, a clear recognition of her global contribution to neoclassical music.

‘All Songs Are Ghosts’: An Interview With Hania Rani

Discography

Hania Rani and Dobrawa Czocher – White Flag (2015)
Tęskno – Mi (2018)
Hania Rani – Esja (2019)
Hania Rani – Home (2020)
Hania Rani – Music for Film and Theatre (2021)
Hania Rani (with Dobrawa Czocher) – Inner Symphonies (2021)
Hania Rani – On Giacometti (2023)
Hania Rani – Ghosts (2023)
Hania Rani – Non Fiction – Piano Concerto In Four Movements (2025)
Hania Rani – Sentimental Value (2026)

Originally written in Polish, translated into English by P. Grabowski, December 2021; updated June 2026

minimalist music

contemporary music

grzegorz ciechowski