Hania Rani

Multi-award-winning composer and pianist Hania Rani returns to the Barbican this autumn for the world premiere performance of her first piano concerto and symphonic work: Non Fiction: A Piano Concerto in Four Movements. Joined by Manchester Collective, assembled as a 45-piece orchestra with violinist Rakhi Singh, conductor Hugh Brunt and special guests Jack Wyllie and Valentina Magaletti, Rani returns following her sold out Barbican debut earlier this month where she performed her 2024 album Ghosts.

Rani’s new work is composed in response to the discovery in 2020 of the compositions of a young music prodigy, Josima Feldschuh, written in the Warsaw Ghetto during the horrors of World War II. Moved by the young girl’s story, Rani chooses to examine it through the lens of current horrors in both Ukraine and Gaza, and how we observe them through modern media. In doing so, Rani investigates the constant coexistence of harmony and disorder, creating a sonic metaphor for the survival of the human spirit when faced with violence.

With Rani drawing on her classical background, uniquely contemporary music and improvisation, audiences can expect a profound and powerful display of a modern masterwork. In the opening set, audiences can also expect a selection of Rani’s contemporary instrumental music for film and theatre alongside new music arranged for a small ensemble.