We are Emiel & Koné.
We've both been musicians since we were kids. Over the years the handpan quietly became our main instrument, and a big part of our musical lives.
We met about seven years ago at a jam session in Leuven, and we've been playing and building things together ever since.
Koné is a professional handpan player. He's performed and toured internationally, spent years developing his own way with the instrument, and comes to it from a background as a percussionist. After putting more and more of himself into the handpan, he started a dedicated handpan school in Copenhagen, the first of its kind in Scandinavia.
The Brussels project grew out of that, naturally. We're bringing the idea of a handpan school and community here: a place to learn the instrument, to practise, to meet other players, to come to workshops, and simply to spend time with the handpan.
Emiel
Co-founder
A versatile musician and teacher, helping students find their own voice through the instrument.
Koné
Co-founder
One of the first professional handpan players in Belgium, an internationally touring handpan musician, percussionist and experienced teacher.
Teaching
We teach the handpan the way we learned it — slowly, and by listening. Lessons are personal and built around you and your instrument. We pay attention to how you touch the metal, how you settle into a rhythm, and we help you grow a playing practice that feels like your own.
Craft
We work with trusted makers around the world, people we know personally. Each handpan is handmade, and no two are truly alike: even in the same scale, two instruments can feel and sound different. We care about tuning, about how a note opens up, and about how an instrument responds under your hands.
Community
We want to build a real handpan community in Brussels: workshops, evenings to play together, and a place where players can meet and share the instrument. You don't need to be an expert to be part of it.
Our roots
Handpan Brussels grew out of the experience built at Handpan Copenhagen, the first dedicated handpan school in Scandinavia, started by Koné. We bring that knowledge, those makers and that way of teaching to Brussels.