The final installment of a five-part pilgrimage to the 2026 BIG EARS festival.
At Big Ears, the Polish pianist and composer moved between two modes: the orchestral expansiveness of her piano concerto Non Fiction with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, and the arpeggiated synth patterns of her solo electronic alter ego Chilling Bambino—a love letter to her Prophet 8 and a chance to escape the rigor of classical composition for smaller, weirder rooms. She discusses why she created the alias ("people who don't know Hania Rani can just enter with curiosity"), the value of creating space to think in an overscheduled world, and the festival's ethos of genre refusal, where listening means staying with what you don't yet understand.
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Interview recorded in Knoxville, 29 March 2026
Produced and mixed in St Louis, July 2026
Episode 41: THE PILGRIMAGE - Part 5: WAITING ROOM - with Hania Rani
LINKS
Hania Rani
Bandcamp
Sheet Music
Non Fiction
Sonic Liberation Front / Radio alHara
Big Ears
TRACKLIST
ARTIST – “TITLE” (ALBUM, YEAR)
Hania Rani, “I.III Meno Mosso” (Non Fiction - Piano Concerto in Four Movements, 2025)
SP INTRO
Hania Rani presents Chilling Bambino, [excerpt] (Live at Tivoli Vredenburg 2025-11-09)
Patrick Watson, “je te laisserai des mots (instrumental)” (2010)
Hania Rani, “II.II Presto” (Non Fiction - Piano Concerto in Four Movements, 2025)
Portico Quartet, “With, Beside, Against (Hania Rani Remix)” (Portico Quartet / Hania Rani, 2021)
Hania Rani presents Chilling Bambino, [excerpt] (Live at Tivoli Vredenburg 2025-11-09)
Hania Rani, “IV. Semplice” (Non Fiction - Piano Concerto in Four Movements, 2025)
Hania Rani presents Chilling Bambino, [excerpt] (Live at Tivoli Vredenburg 2025-11-09)
Hania Rani, “Struggle” (On Giacometti, 2023)
Hania Rani, “There Will Be Hope” (Inner Symphonies, 2021)
Hania Rani, “Waiting” (Music for Film and Theatre, 2021)
—-Sound Propositions is written, recorded, mixed, and produced by Joseph Sannicandro.
