Biography

31 July 1984 (age 33)

Manu Delago was born in Innsbruck, Tyrol, and took music lessons as a child in accordion and piano. As a teenager he mainly played drums for various rock bands. In 2003 he picked up the Hang, which gradually turned into one of his main musical instruments.

After graduating from the Mozarteum, Innsbruck, in classical percussion, Delago moved to London and studied jazz drums at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, beginning his focus on the Swiss instrument, Hang. Later he studied composition at the Trinity College of Music in London. After completing his studies, he worked as a composer, ensemble leader and musician. Since 2007 he has performed internationally in more than forty countries on six continents and provided music for film.

Between 2000 and 2007 Manu Delago was working as live and studio drummer for various Austrian bands such as HotchPotch, Zabine, Michael Tschuggnall, Nadine Beiler, Bluatschink and Jazzwerkstatt Wien.

In 2006, after playing together in different bands, Manu Delago and Christoph Pepe Auer founded the first Hang and Bass Clarinet duo in the world called Living Room. The duo has released two albums and a YouTube series called Hang & Bass Clarinet Megahits. In the project "Living Room in London", they were joined by a string trio from London, including Ellie Fagg, Tom Norris and Gregor Riddell.

His current live band Manu Delago Handmade is a versatile quartet with a notable dynamic spectrum between electronic beats and acoustic instruments such as Hang, bassoon, violin, piano and percussion. Delago has also collaborated with artists including Anoushka Shankar, Shpongle, Bugge Wesseltoft, Giannis Charoulis, Nitin Sawhney, Stuart McCallum, Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian, Boris Grebenshikov, Georg Breinschmid and Björk. His solo piece Mono Desire was listed in the Top30 best-rated music videos on YouTube.

Manu Delago is the percussionist and hang player for the Björk Biophilia residencies, and performed percussion with The Cinematic Orchestra during their 2015 European tour.

Discography:

2006 – Made in Silence

2007 – Living Room (Christoph Pepe Auer & Manu Delago)

2007 – Handmade

2008 – Adventions

2010 – Made in Silence 2

2012 – Manuscripts (& London Symphony Orchestra strings)

2013 – Bigger Than Home

2015 – Silver Kobalt

2017 - Metromonk