While many have heard handpan music in yoga classes, spas and wellness centers, audiences can experience it live in concert this weekend.
Expert handpan player Ricky Hillson will perform a “PanHarmony Concert” at Sirius Community in Shutesbury on Saturday, June 13, from 7 to 9 p.m. The first half of the concert will feature a solo set of Hillson’s original handpan compositions, while the second half will pivot to world music in collaboration with other guest performers.
The handpan, originally called the “Hang,” is a steel percussion instrument that produces melodic tones when a performer strikes or taps it with their hands or fingers. It is a relatively new instrument — originating in Bern, Switzerland in 2000 — that takes inspiration from the traditional Trinidadian steelpan.
Because early manufacturers strictly limited distribution, acquiring the instrument used to be notoriously difficult.
“You couldn’t get hold of it. You had to write a letter to them,” Hillson recalled. “I wrote, like, three or four times saying, ‘I would love an opportunity to get an instrument.’”
Even when the creators initially expanded distribution to the United States, Hillson tried going through that distributor to no avail. “Still wasn’t able to get one,” he said.
It wasn’t until around 2011 that Hillson finally acquired a handpan of his own — an ironic twist, considering he grew up listening to steelpan music as a child in the West Indies. Once he received it, though, he “just fell in love with the instrument,” he said.
“From that point,” he added, “it just progressed into a whole life built around the handpan.”
Hillson also met his wife, Kaeza Fearn, because of the handpan. Fearn, who is also a musician, runs a handpan ensemble on Cape Cod. She initially got in touch with Hillson because she was looking to acquire some instruments for her group and wanted advice on which ones to choose. Their first meeting was “very professional,” Hillson recalled, but “there was a connection there, and it all evolved through that.”
When Hillson spoke to the Gazette, he did so via Zoom from his home on Cape Cod, where several dozen handpans in various metallic shades sat on shelves behind him. Unlike a guitar, a player cannot access every chord on a single handpan.
“They’re all in different keys and different scales, so if you’re somebody that gets into handpan and you say, ‘Oh, I connect with this scale,’ oftentimes, people hear another one and they’re like, ‘Oh, I want access to this scale instead,’ ” Hillson said. “You need that particular pan with those particular notes to play something in that way. … You have different notes available to you.”
Even before discovering the handpan, Hillson possessed a deep background in world music. In addition to the handpan, he plays the sitar, mandolin, rebab, ukulele, baglama, saz, guitar, flute, ngoni, kora, oud and dozens of other instruments.
“The early handpan players, including myself, were really focused on, ‘How do we use rhythm to drive the piece?’ And that ended up in very open-ended compositions that, I think, show the handpan in a particular light,” he said. “Now, more guitar players, like myself and other people that play more classic instruments, are getting into the handpan, and I think we’re moving more toward the handpan as a melodic instrument with percussion parallel to the melody.”
Hillson was a high school teacher for 10 years, but the handpan is now his full-time profession. Besides performing and composing, he teaches somewhere between 700 and 900 lessons a year using a curriculum he created. Several of those students, he noted, are regular clients who use the weekly lessons as a self-care ritual, much like others use yoga.
Hillson emphasized that the handpan is uniquely accessible because it doesn’t require years of intensive study to perform.
“Not everybody could pick up a guitar or a viola and immediately make a sound,” he said. “Handpan, because [manufacturers have] pre-selected the chords on the scale, it’s hard to make it sound bad, so you could hand it to a child and you’d be like, ‘Oh, that sounds beautiful.’ It’s designed for openness and accessibility in that way.”
Since its creation, the instrument has become popular enough that new players can purchase a starter version for only a few hundred dollars.
“It might not be great,” Hillson said. “But it’s somewhere to start. … If you access the handpan world, whatever you access it with, it’s totally OK.”
Admission to the concert is a $20 suggested donation at the door. For more information about Hillson and his music, visit rewildyoursoulmusic.com.
