Credit: Photo: Elizabeth Gillis/NPR

Hania Rani makes beautiful music that's haunted, yet enchanted. The Polish pianist and composer blurs the lines of ambient, classical and house — submerged beats pulse under ripples of piano, synths and her delicate voice. She regularly performs in concert halls across Europe, but during an American tour she brought the cinematic, yet intimate songs of her album Ghosts to the Tiny Desk.

Rani is conservatory trained, but like so many post-classical artists working right now, brings her own influences to centuries-old tradition. The way her fingers chromatically surge in a cascade of color suggest the later compositions of Mozart — somehow lush and sublime in their tension, on the brink of something different. But there's also a restlessness in how Rani, accompanied by Ziemowit Klimek on upright bass and synth, bounces between the piano and synths with ease and often within the same song. She is a wonder to watch.

SET LIST

  • "Thin Line"
  • "Moans (Instrumental)"
  • "Don't Break My Heart"

MUSICIANS

  • Hania Rani: upright piano, synth, vocals
  • Ziemowit Klimek: bass, synth

TINY DESK TEAM

  • Producer: Lars Gotrich 
  • Director/Editor: Kara Frame
  • Audio Technical Director: Josh Rogosin
  • Series Producer: Bobby Carter
  • Videographers: Kara Frame, Joshua Bryant, Alanté Serene
  • Audio Engineer: Neil Tevault 
  • Production Assistant: Ashley Pointer
  • Photographer: Elizabeth Gillis
  • Tiny Desk Team: Suraya Mohamed, Maia Stern, Hazel Cills
  • Series Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson
  • VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins
  • Senior VP, Programming: Anya Grundmann

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Tags: Genre: Classical  Hania Rani  Series: Tiny Desk