Yuval Babayoff: The Handpan Player Who Turns Sound into Meditation

Have you recently stumbled across handpan player Yuval Babayoff on YouTube or Instagram? Want to learn more about the artist behind those soothing videos? What does his musical path look like? How did he discover the handpan? And has he released albums or compositions featuring this mesmerising percussion instrument?

I first heard about Yuval Babayoff through a story someone shared with me three years ago, and I was immediately drawn to the calm, grounded, meditative atmosphere created by this Israeli-born percussionist. Naturally, I wanted to learn more about his past and upcoming projects, and I’ll lay out what I found in this article.

By the end of this article, you’ll know:

• Yuval Babayoff’s background
• His approach to playing the Hang drum
• His discography and creative projects

That way, you’ll feel closer to this musician and may even connect more deeply with the pieces he regularly shares across his social platforms.

Now, let’s take a closer look at Yuval Babayoff’s career.

Who, then, is Yuval Babayoff, the world-renowned handpan player?

If there’s one internationally recognised handpan player who keeps his personal life under wraps, it’s Yuval Babayoff. His social profiles clearly show that he lives in Israel, and his last name is common among Bukharian Jews, a Central Asian community with a strong presence in Israel. However, his birthdate—and therefore his exact age—remains unknown, as does how he discovered and took up the handpan. As of this writing, Yuval Babayoff has never publicly addressed the topic. His LinkedIn profile doesn’t mention any formal musical training, but he reportedly attended high school at Gymnasia Realit, an Israeli institution, before becoming a software developer at SHIFT Live, a transport company serving both the public and private sectors.

What is widely known, however, is that Yuval Babayoff is in a relationship with singer-songwriter Clara Sophia Kiersh, and that they met around 2022. This matters because his partner later appears prominently in many of the videos and compositions he created. The couple doesn’t have a permanent home and says they’ve spent the last five years “immersed in the jungle,” with documented stays in northern Thailand, Costa Rica, and the French mountains.

In addition to the handpan, Yuval Babayoff also plays several other musical instruments, such as guitar, steel tongue drum, harp, and Native American flute. He’s also skilled in electronic production, which he uses to support his partner on multiple tracks where he’s credited as a co-producer. When it comes to the handpan, this musician favours Eastern and exotic scales, perhaps as a subtle nod to his roots. He mainly plays instruments tuned to Hijaz or Romanian Hijaz. Style-wise, he alternates between free improvisation and more structured pieces. His sound sits at the crossroads of meditative, ethnic, and Eastern music, with a touch of sound therapy, as he highlights the benefits of the 432-hertz frequency.

What is the discography of this outstanding hang drum player?

Distributed via the independent platform Amuse to Spotify, Apple Music, and Deezer, Yuval Babayoff’s discography is relatively concise. Here are the releases he’s put out:

• Ancient Sounds: a single released on 15 July 2022, featuring a solo performance on his go-to handpan tuned to the Hijaz scale
• Pleasure: a three-track EP produced in collaboration with Aleceo. XXX
• Eye On The Sparrow: another single released on 11 August 2023. It’s an improvised duet with Konstantin Rössler, another handpan player. This is his signature track, with over 120,000 streams on Spotify and 15,000 views on YouTube. You can listen to it in the video below:

Alongside his solo discography, Yuval Babayoff has also been actively involved in a duo project with his partner, Clara Sophia Kiersh, since 2022. Originally named “Rising Seeds” until 2024, the project was simply renamed “Clara Sophia.” In this project, the couple plays multiple instruments and sings with the goal of helping listeners unwind, often sharing improvised compositions that last over an hour, such as their well-known track “Om Shanti,” which is closing in on a million views and is available below:

The project’s first official album was released on 9 June 2025, and is titled “Golden Wings.” A concert is also scheduled in Vienna, Austria, for 3 October 2026—just a few months from now as I write this.

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Yuval Babayoff is a unique figure on the international handpan scene: not a high-visibility virtuoso-teacher, but an intimate sound explorer grounded in a spiritual, nomadic path. His real work isn’t a long list of albums and tracks, but a way of life he shares with Clara Sophia. Thanks to everything you’ve read in this article, you now have a clear picture of what’s known about Yuval Babayoff’s musical journey.

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Staying with artists who blend music and wellness, I also recommend checking out Vybeshift, a young woman who uses this instrument as part of her meditation practice. That said, this doesn’t mean she’s any less talented than the others. In my opinion, she’s one of the outstanding handpan players currently found all over the world.