Review: Hania Rani at Fremantle Arts Centre
Hania Rani at Fremantle Arts Centre
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Award-winning pianist, composer, and singer Hania Rani ventured to the west coast for the first time to deliver a transcendent performance as part of Perth Festival 2025. Performing under the stars in the gardens of the Fremantle Arts Centre, the Polish performer led audiences on a captivating aural journey that showcased her adroit musical virtuosity across a suite of uniquely brilliant compositions.
On stage, Rani was an engaging presence, in flux throughout the performance. Surrounded by her workstation of pianos, synths, and electronic gadgets at the centre of the stage, the artist crisscrossed between the instruments to bring her sonic landscapes to life. When seated in front of one of two pianos on stage, Rani embodied a more traditional role of singer-songwriter, while when commanding her synths or moving back and forth amongst her electronic equipment, she was more akin to a mad scientist willing life into her creations.
The mad scientist version of herself was present early on in the set as she delivered the more experimentally minded Oltre Terra and 24.03 from her most recent release, 2023’s critically acclaimed Ghosts. Elsewhere, Dancing with Ghosts was a perfect example of Rani’s ability to merge genres; meshing jazz and experimental electronica with neo-classical piano, while aboard The Boat, the pianist commenced with a simple motif that expanded with long padded synths into the majestic, before the motif returned and was carefully jockeyed back to shore.
Returning back to 2022’s Home, Rani started Leaving on the upright piano before moving to her bank of synths to recruit extra sonic texture. Once engaged, the singer returned to her upright before moving on to the grand piano for the piece’s closure and then segueing into the twinkling key intro of Buka. As she moved about the stage, Rani often had her back to the audience. Rather than cause a disconnect with the audience, it was understood that her actions were a necessity for the performance, but in addition, the artistic lighting choices assisted in maintaining the audience’s engagement.
At the times when Rani was concentrating over her electronic equipment, the lights cast her in silhouette, which emphasised the motions of her limbs as they moved in time to the music, transforming her into a sort of avant-garde version of the classic iPod ad. In addition, the twelve on-stage angled floor lamps that ran in a line across the stage cued the dramatic intent of the music by their flashes or changes in luminance, while the creatively themed shorts projected onto the large white canvases that flanked the centre stage distributed the audience’s attention away from the sole performer on stage and onto the music itself.
These videos were of particular effect during the standout Don’t Break My Heart. With scissor-like hi-hats and a reverbed backwards snare loop forming a drum beat that propelled the track, Rani’s jazzy vocals gave the song a potently earnest energy while, on an equally high note, Thin Lines was the most rocking moment of the night.
After setting each drum in motion via her interfaces, Rani introduced a flood of sampled strings that wound around a pulsating layer of bass synth pads, which she then complemented vocally and on piano. With these stronger beats present, the performance recalled elements of Kid A-era Radiohead, while her improvisational piano work shared similarities with that of The Necks.
With such a well of talent to draw upon, one can only imagine where Hania Rani will choose to go next in her musical career. What is clear, however, is that given such a stunningly sublime performance, she will need to return back to these shores to perform again as soon as possible.
MICHAEL HOLLICK
Photos by Adrian Thomson
