Manu Delago & Friends

«Handpan. Drums. Composition»: the laconic beginning of Manuel Delago’s brief biography. By the age of two, the Innsbruck-born artist had already demonstrated his love of percussion in particular and music in general. Active as a teenager in diverse bands, the musician and composer also studied in Salzburg and London – and has been performing for almost 20 years in formations he has founded himself, in more than 50 countries on six continents so far. Which is why his fans have long known what the term «handpan» refers to. Looking something like a metal turtle shell, from a technical point of view it’s a somewhat young instrument: a percussion idiophone made from two concave pieces of steel plate with multiple tone fields on the upper side. Together with the dulcet three-part songs of the Tyroleans Mimi Schmid and Anna Widauer of Mad about Lemon and the Tonkunstler under Jules Buckley, Manuel Delago guarantees a first-class Plugged-In experience, even with his hands (and not just his hands) full on handpan and drums.