About
Performed by Hania Rani (piano) Manchester Collective and special guests Jack Wyllie (saxophone) and Valentina Magaletti (drums). Conducted by Hugh Brunt.
Hania Rani is a multi-award winning composer and pianist who moves effortlessly between the worlds of classical and experimental music. Born in Gdańsk, Poland (birthplace of the Solidarity movement) she began playing piano at seven, trained as a classical pianist in Warsaw, later pursued her studies in Berlin, where she began to explore electronic music. More recently she has settled in London. Best known for a series of remarkable, ever evolving albums (Esja, Home and Ghosts) she has written for film, theatre and television including the Flowers of Alice Hart and the score for the forthcoming film from director Joachim Trier, Sentimental Values.
Non Fiction is Rani's first piano concerto and symphonic piece composed partially in response to the discovery in 2020 of the compositions of a young music prodigy, Josima Feldschuh, written during the horrors of World War II in the Warsaw Ghetto. Moved by the girl's story she choose to examine it through the lens of modern horrors: the invasion of Ukraine and genocide in Gaza, and how closely we can 'observe' and 'hear' them through modern media. In doing this Rani examines the constant coexistence of harmony and disorder creating a sonic metaphor for the survival of the human spirit when faced by the violence and uses the emotional value of sound to make these somehow distant conflicts more relatable to us on a human level.
Drawing on Rani's classical background, and her admiration for experimental and improvised music, symbolically juxtaposing precisely scored music with the beauty of momentum 'Non Fiction' is a modern masterwork: revelatory, powerful, emotional and profound.
In this world premier Rani is joined by the Manchester Collective assembled as a 45-piece orchestra, led by violinist Rakhi Singh and guest performances saxophonist Jack Wyllie (Portico Quartet) and drummer Valentina Magaletti and conducted by Hugh Brunt (London Contemporary Orchestra). Non Fiction was recorded at Abbey Road Studio Two in January this year for release this Autumn.
For the opening set Rani will present a selection of her contemporary instrumental music for film and theatre alongside new music arranged for a small ensemble.