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HandpanInstrumental musicDelhi, India

Ashim Bery

Ten years with one instrument. Still listening.

Play the handpan
Latest releaseMay (Amaltas)Single · 2026
Cover artwork for May (Amaltas)

01Latest release

May (Amaltas)

Single

“May (Amaltas)” is the first of four songs following Delhi’s seasons through the trees that announce them. This one belongs to summer, and to the amaltas: the golden showers that bloom across the city in May, just as the heat arrives. It is also Ashim’s first new music in four years.

Listen on

02Music

Every note, a song

Nine notes on the handpan, nine songs. Touch a note to hear it, then play the song it opens.

Touch a note

Each one opens a song.

Play the drawing with a mouse or finger, or use the notes below.

D Celtic Minor, as on Ashim’s Chirp handpan · synthesised in your browser

The listening index 14 releases

  1. 01 May (Amaltas) Single 2026

    31 May 2026

  2. 02 Chaos in the Ocean Single 2022

    15 July 2022 · with Vedant Sharma

  3. 03 Hillsong Single 2022

    12 February 2022

  4. 04 Riding With Kachchu Single 2021

    30 March 2021

  5. 05 Going Somewhere Single 2020

    20 October 2020

  6. 06 Raindrops Live single 2020

    1 August 2020 · with Vishi Kant · Live at a house concert, Delhi

  7. 07 Recovery Single 2020

    15 July 2020 · with Vedant Sharma

  8. 08 Machlu Ki Baatein Single 2020

    5 July 2020 · with Vedant Sharma

  9. 09 Landour Ki Hawa Single 2020

    26 June 2020 · with Vedant Sharma

  10. 10 Live (House Concert Delhi) Live single 2020

    9 June 2020 · Live at a house concert, Delhi

  11. 11 Sounds of Schwanheim Single 2020

    5 June 2020 · with Abhishek Sekhri

  12. 12 Kalkaji to Khirkee Single 2020

    25 May 2020

  13. 13 Bodhgaaon Bulaye Single 2020

    19 May 2020

  14. 14 Chai With Partner Single 2020

    11 May 2020 · with Abhishek Vidyarthy Singh & Vishi Kant

All music, everywhere

03Live

In the room

Concerts, festivals and performances in India and internationally.

No dates announced just yet.

Announcements land here first, and on Instagram. Programming a festival, a venue or a private event?

Send a booking enquiry

Selected performances

  1. Sep 2026Opening for Chet Faker, A Love For Strangers India tourDLF CyberHub, Gurugram
  2. May–Aug 2026Spiral with The Play Factory, four showsGurugram and New Delhi
  3. 2025Baarish: ‘A Symphony of Rain’, the opening invocationTravancore Palace, New Delhi
  4. Dec 2024Dilli Improvisers Orchestra with Raymond MacDonald, W.I.P alt.FESTDelhi
  5. May 2023Songs & Stories, a full-length show with Nithin Shamsudhin and Abhishek Singh, presented by W.I.P Labs (opens in a new tab)
  6. Nov 2021Major & Minor Music FestivalGuirim, North Goa
  7. 2018–2024The Patriarch with The Play Factory, across India and in BhutanGoa · Gurugram · New Delhi · Bhutan
  8. Aug 2019TEDxMAIT talk and performance, ‘Sounds and Stories’ (opens in a new tab)New Delhi
  9. Oct 2018Sofar Sounds Goa, ‘Sounds of Schwanheim’ (opens in a new tab)Island House, Divar, Goa
  10. May 2018Sofar Sounds Jaipur, ‘On the road’ (opens in a new tab)Jaipur
  11. Sofar Sounds Goa (second show) and Sofar Sounds DehradunGoa · Dehradun
  12. Bir Music Festival, Season 4Bir, Himachal Pradesh
  13. Nariyal Pani festival
  14. 2016–17Ashim Bery & Friends at The Piano Man Jazz ClubNew Delhi

Rooms and stages

  1. Ashim Bery playing a handpan at night at a Sofar Sounds event, under strings of lights and paper lanterns
    01 A Sofar Sounds evening
  2. Grainy black-and-white photo of Ashim Bery playing a handpan on a rug, a microphone in front of him and exhibition posters behind
    02 In black and white
  3. Ashim Bery seated on a large stage with a tongue drum, speaking into a microphone, a projection behind him and the audience in the foreground
    03 On a big stage
  4. Ashim Bery alone in red light in front of a dark curtain, playing a handpan
    04 Red light
  5. View from the crowd: Ashim Bery seated on a large stage in blue light, a big screen behind him
    05 From the crowd
  6. Ashim Bery seated barefoot on a cane stool playing a small steel drum, a projection behind and a handpan in its case at his feet
    06 With a projection
  7. Black-and-white photo from behind an audience member's head, a performer out of focus on stage
    07 An audience's view
  8. Ashim Bery in red light, speaking into a microphone with a tongue drum on his lap
    08 Between pieces
  9. Ashim Bery smiling on stage with a steel tongue drum on his lap and a microphone in front
    09 Mid-set
  10. Ashim Bery playing a handpan in deep red light, a percussionist at the edge of the frame
    10 In red
  11. Close-up of Ashim Bery playing a steel tongue drum between two microphones
    11 Close

04About

A decade with one instrument

Black-and-white photo of Ashim Bery in profile, looking down at his handpan as he plays, light falling across the steel
Close-up of Ashim Bery's handpan, its tone fields catching the stage light

Ashim Bery is a handpan player and instrumental musician based in Delhi, India. Trained in tabla and Hindustani classical music from childhood, he began a solo project on tongue drum and handpan in 2015, and has since performed across India and internationally, from Sofar Sounds living rooms to festival stages.

His music is mostly instrumental and rooted in places and seasons. Since 2020 he has released a series of singles independently, some recorded with musicians including Vedant Sharma, Vishi Kant, Abhishek Sekhri and Abhishek Vidyarthy Singh. In 2026 he returned with “May (Amaltas)”, the first chapter of a four-part series inspired by Delhi’s seasons and the trees that announce them.

He plays live in theatre with The Play Factory, most recently in Spiral (2026), in The Patriarch, which has toured India and Bhutan since 2018, and in One BHK. He has improvised with the Dilli Improvisers Orchestra under Raymond MacDonald, played festivals including the Bir Music Festival, Nariyal Pani and Major & Minor in Goa, spoken and played at TEDxMAIT, and in September 2026 opened for Chet Faker in Gurugram.

Much of the wider work is about listening — to the instrument, to the room, and to the places where sound happens.

Everything I write starts with something lived — a place, a person, a conversation over chai. The handpan holds those memories the way a home does: warm, close, a little worn in. When I play, I'm really just telling you a story.

— Ashim Bery
  1. 01

    Seasons and trees

    “May (Amaltas)” is the first chapter of a four-part series about Delhi’s seasons and the trees that seem to announce them before the weather does. It was his first new music in four years. The next chapter, “October”, is in the works.

  2. 02

    Machlu ki Baatein

    Written in 2018, it grew out of childhood summers in Dalhousie: walks through Bakrota, picnics in Khajiar, the daisy fields of Kalatop, and chai with namakpara at a tiny stall remembered as Machlu.

  3. 03

    Rooms and places

    Living rooms with Sofar Sounds in Goa, Jaipur and Dehradun; Songs & Stories, his landmark 2023 show with W.I.P Labs; theatre stages with The Play Factory; festivals in the hills and by the sea. The room is part of the music.

05Collaborations

Music inside other work

Alongside concerts, Ashim works with theatre makers and other musicians: playing live inside a performance, improvising in ensembles, and sharing stages.

The Play Factory

Spiral

Ashim Bery playing a handpan on a dark stage in Spiral, a large masked puppet figure leaning in beside him
Project
Spiral
With
The Play Factory
Discipline
Theatre · solo performance with live music
Year
2026
Role
Live handpan, as part of the show's live ensemble
Collaborators
Directed by Mohit Mukherjee, co-written with Ananya Jain, performed by Preeti Agrawal Mehta. Live music with Deepak (drums, cajón), Yusra (Hindustani vocals) and Anil Chawla (keys). Puppetry and shadow work by Shameem.

Spiral is a one-woman performance about how women move through fear, surveillance and abuse in urban India, told through three fictionalised stories across public and private spaces.

Process

The music is played live and shapes the rhythm of the piece as much as the spoken word; The Hindu wrote that the drums and handpan keep up a sense of constant tension. Spiral ran for four shows in the summer of 2026: The Immersion Room, Gurugram (10 May), The Piano Man, New Delhi (24 May), The Piano Man, Gurugram (31 May) and Oddbird Theatre, New Delhi (2 August).

Earlier with The Play Factory

  • One BHK The life of a working woman in an Indian city, drawing on Samira Gupta's lived experience.

The Play Factory

The Patriarch

A scene from The Patriarch: an actor in a waistcoat sits beside a wall of mosaic mirrors while Ashim Bery plays a handpan against a red wall
Seen through an archway across a reflective floor at Mandrem House, Goa, Ashim Bery plays a handpan beside an actor in a warmly lit room
Black-and-white scene from The Patriarch: an actor rises from his chair as Ashim Bery plays a handpan in the shadows
Project
The Patriarch
With
The Play Factory
Discipline
Theatre with live music
Year
2018–2024
Role
Live handpan
Collaborators
Co-created with Samira Gupta; a production of The Play Factory, founded by Mohit Mukherjee.
The Play Factory poster for The Patriarch, describing a story told through three generations of men that questions tradition, respect and value systems in a patriarchal household.

Three points of view, three generations of men. The Patriarch follows a business family in Kolkata and asks its audience to look again at tradition, respect and the value systems that hold a patriarchal household together.

Process

Since 2018 the play has travelled to homes, studios and stages across India, and in 2024 to Bhutan for its most recent show, with the handpan played live alongside the actors in each space.

Performed at

  1. 2018Mandrem House, Goa
  2. 2019Eastwind Academy, Gurugram
  3. 2019The Blank Canvas, Mandi House, New Delhi
  4. 2019Remakery, Khirki Extension, New Delhi
  5. 2024Lilanoor, South Extension, New Delhi
  6. 2024Red House, Okhla, New Delhi
  7. 2024The Royal Academy, Bhutan

Dilli Improvisers Orchestra

Improvising with an international ensemble

Black-and-white photo of the Delhi Improvisers Orchestra performing in a small room lined with posters, musicians on guitar, tabla and bass, the audience in silhouette
Project
Improvising with an international ensemble
With
Dilli Improvisers Orchestra
Discipline
Free improvisation and experimental sound
Year
2024
Role
Ensemble member, handpan
Collaborators
Mentored and led by Raymond MacDonald, the Glasgow saxophonist, composer and co-founder of the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra. Founded by Anirban Ghosh (Baan G) and Vaibhav Batra (Psychopanda); produced by W.I.P Labs.

The Dilli Improvisers Orchestra describes itself as India's first orchestra for free improvisation. In December 2024 Ashim played with the ensemble at W.I.P alt.FEST in Delhi, led by Raymond MacDonald.

Process

Musicians from jazz, Hindustani classical, modular synthesis and electronic music make the piece together in the moment, without a fixed score.

Shared stages

Duos, ensembles and performances alongside other artists.

Ashim Bery at a handpan, lit warm on a dark stage, with a drummer at a kit beside him
With a drummer
Ashim Bery playing a handpan outdoors at dusk beside a violinist, under string lights in front of a rock face with plants
Outdoors, with a violinist
Ashim Bery with a tongue drum on his lap, speaking into a microphone, a bass player smiling behind him
With a bassist
Ashim Bery playing tabla in a crowded music café, between other musicians
On tabla
Ashim Bery at a handpan in a packed, dimly lit room, among an ensemble with a saxophonist, guitarist, keys and drums, the audience seated on the floor
In an ensemble

Open to collaborations in

  • Theatre
  • Movement & dance
  • Visual art
  • Sound design
  • Film
  • Experimental performance
Propose a collaboration

06Videos

Watch it played

Live performances, sessions and music videos. Nothing loads until you press play.

Sounds of Schwanheim Live performance · Sofar Sounds, Goa
Songs & Stories Live performance · with Nithin Shamsudhin & Abhishek Singh · W.I.P Labs · 2023
On the road Live performance · Sofar Sounds, Jaipur
Sounds and Stories TEDx talk · TEDxMAIT
Live at Kala Ghoda Records Live session · New Delhi · 2022
More on YouTube

—What's next

On the workbench

Next in the seasons seriesIn the works

October

The second chapter of the four-part series that began with “May (Amaltas)”, following Delhi’s seasons through the trees that announce them.

Follow for the release

07The instrument

A short history of the handpan

The instrument Ashim plays belongs to a young family of steel instruments that grew out of a single Swiss invention around the turn of the millennium.

Diagram of a handpan in cross-section, labelling the ding, tone fields, the joined rim and the gu opening. ding tone field rim gu (opening)
A handpan in section: two steel shells joined at the rim. The tone fields and central ding are hammered into the upper shell; the opening underneath (the gu) shapes the instrument's resonance.
  1. 2000–01

    The Hang

    In Bern, Switzerland, Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer of PANArt — a workshop that had been building steelpan instruments — developed a new instrument played with the hands, and presented it publicly in 2001. They named it the Hang, Bernese German for “hand”.

    PANArt has described its origin as a meeting between their own steel instruments and the ghatam, the clay pot of South Indian classical music.

  2. Form

    Two shells, one voice

    Two shells of hardened, nitrided steel are joined at the rim. The upper shell carries a central dome, the ding, surrounded by seven or eight hammered tone fields, each tuned to a note along with its overtones.

    Underneath is an opening, the gu. It turns the body into a Helmholtz resonator: the air inside sounds a low note of its own, beneath the notes of the steel.

  3. 2007–

    From the Hang to the handpan

    As interest grew, other makers began building related instruments of their own. In 2007 the American workshop Pantheon Steel used the word handpan for its instrument, the Halo, and the term came to describe the whole family.

    PANArt stopped making the Hang in 2013 and moved on to new instruments. “Hang” remains PANArt’s name for its own work; instruments by other builders are handpans.

  4. Today

    A worldwide practice

    Handpans are now made by independent builders all over the world. A community has grown around them through online forums (handpan.org opened in 2009), recorded video, gatherings and festivals, and players now take the instrument into concerts, theatre, film and popular music.

Sources and further reading

08Contact

Bookings & collaborations

For concerts, festivals, theatre, licensing and commissions — or just to say hello.

  • Concerts and live performance
  • Festivals and cultural events
  • Theatre and interdisciplinary collaboration
  • Music licensing and sound commissions
  • General enquiries

Based in

Delhi, India

Or write directly: ashimbery94@gmail.com

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