Manu Delago: The Austrian Handpan Virtuoso

Have you heard of Manu Delago, a handpan player and percussionist known worldwide for his one-of-a-kind compositions? Curious about his career path? What’s his story, and which tracks made him famous?

Back in 2010—more than 15 years ago—I discovered the beautiful melody “Mono Desire,” played on the Hang drum by Manu Delago. I was instantly hooked, and ever since, I’ve kept up with his performances through his social media and official website. So in this article, I’ll walk you through the key milestones of Manu Delago’s career.

After reading this article in its entirety, you’ll have all the information you need about:

• Manu Delago's biography
• The most famous pieces composed by this percussionist

This will help you discover new sides of this musical genius’s professional life—arguably the artist who helped bring the Hang into the spotlight. You’ll also learn some fascinating details about his collaborations.

So, let’s dive into Manu Delago’s career.

What is the biography of Manu Delago, the famous Hang player?

Manu Delago, whose real name is Emanuel Delago-Norz, is an Austrian musician and composer born on July 31, 1984, in Innsbruck, a city nestled in the heart of the Alps. At just 2 years old, Manu Delago sat behind his first drum kit, marking the beginning of a life devoted to music. Four years later, he began playing piano and then, at age 10, he took accordion lessons. He later developed a passion for drumming and played with various rock bands such as HotchPotch, Zabine, Michael Tschuggnall, Nadine Beiler, Bluatschink, and many others. His rock band HotchPotch won the Austrian Band Contest and toured Austria, Germany, Italy, and Spain. It wasn’t until 2003 that he discovered a Hang from PANArt, which would eventually become his main musical instrument.

After graduating in classical percussion from the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, a music university also located in Austria, he moved to London, England, where he studied jazz at the renowned Guildhall School of Music and Drama. It was during these later studies that he focused mainly on mastering his favorite instrument, the Hang, or handpan. A little later, he joined Trinity College of Music, also located in London, where he studied musical composition.

In 2006, after playing in numerous bands, he formed a duo with bass clarinet player Christoph Pepe Auer, creating the world’s first bass-clarinet-and-handpan duo. The pair released two albums and a YouTube series titled Hang & Bass Clarinet Megahits. Around the same time, he formed other groups under his name, such as Manu Delago Handmade and the Manu Delago Ensemble. Gaining international recognition, he has also collaborated with artists such as Björk, Anoushka Shankar, Ólafur Arnalds, Shpongle, Ellie Goulding, Bugge Wesseltoft, Nitin Sawhney, Stuart McCallum, Boris Grebenshchikov, and many others. He has performed as a soloist with the strings of the London Symphony Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, Metropole Orkest, Aurora Orchestra, Münchner Kammerorchester, Züricher Kammerorchester, and various other orchestras. His solo piece Mono Desire was ranked among the top 30 music videos on YouTube, totaling several hundred thousand views. You can listen to it below:

Manu Delago has also performed as a percussionist and Hang player in several Björk shows. He played percussion with The Cinematic Orchestra from 2014 to 2016 and with Ólafur Arnalds in 2018. He served as composer, musician, and assistant engineer on Anoushka Shankar’s 2016 album Land of Gold and joined her on the subsequent world tour. With the Metropole Orkest, they recorded the album Between Us, which earned a Grammy Award nomination in the “Best World Music Album” category. Manu Delago also participated in the “Locus Solus” orchestra project, bringing together Nadishana, Loup Barrow, and Thomas Bloch in a concert of rare and exotic instruments, including, of course, a wide range of handpans.

In 2018, Manu Delago released Parasol Peak, a multi-award-winning album and film in which he leads an ensemble of seven musicians on a mountaineering expedition in the Alps near his hometown. After years of touring, Manu felt it was important to contribute to sustainability by launching the Recycling Tour in 2021, a carbon-neutral tour that took him to venues in Germany and Austria accessible only by bicycle. During the second ReCycling Tour in 2023, his band cycled the distance between Innsbruck and Amsterdam and gave 18 concerts, transporting all their equipment in bike trailers.

His solo audiovisual album "Environ Me" (2021, One Little Independent Records) is a creative explosion of unique tracks, built from his talents as a percussionist, electronic manipulation, and sounds recorded directly from a wide range of natural sources. This LP is a dynamic exploration that showcases the best of his adventurous spirit and singular vision as both a human being and an artist. Manu Delago earned his second Grammy Award nomination for the album Between Uswith Anoushka Shankar and the Metropole Orkest. You can watch one of their live concerts below:

As I write this article, Manu Delago is on tour for his latest album, "Snow from Yesterday," with the vocal trio "Mad About Lemon." He also currently offers a handpan video course on the Master the Handpan platform, which is ideal for intermediate and advanced players. You can check it out by clicking on this link. When he’s not on tour, he’s probably working on new creative ideas or hiking somewhere in the Tyrolean Alps. Since 2007, he has performed in more than fifty countries on six continents, including prestigious venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal Festival Hall, and the Barbican in London, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Sydney Opera House, and the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan. To keep up with his latest news, we recommend following him on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, where he sometimes shares interviews.

What are the most famous songs played on the Handpan by this Austrian musician?

Among his most popular albums are Circadian (2020), Metro Monk (2017), Silver Kobalt (2015), Bigger than Home (2013), Made in Silence (2007), and Adventions (2008). His best-known tracks are:

• The Silent Flight of the Owl
• Freeze
• Two Handful of Sound
• A Long Way
• A Step (featuring Pete Josef)
• Paintings on the Wall
• Pattern Pulse Popcorn
• Polar Bear
• Modern People
• One Thing (featuring Douglas Dare)

Most of this artist’s works are available for download on his Discogs, SoundCloud, or Bandcamp pages, or on CD or vinyl through his official website.

Enjoy a unique musical experience with a high-quality Handpan.

Manu Delago is an internationally renowned musician and one of the world’s leading specialists of the Hang, which he has integrated in an innovative way across a wide variety of musical styles. With everything covered in this article, you should now have a clear picture of this larger-than-life artist’s career.

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Now, let’s head to Siberia, the birthplace of Nadishana, another great handpan player who first specialized in exotic musical instruments before turning to the handpan once he discovered it.