In the year 2024, a branch of PANArt research has brought forth a new form and thus also a new way of play­ing: Pangolo.

To the Instrument

In March 2024, a film team led by Raphaël Engel from RTS (Radio Télévi­sion Suisse) vis­it­ed us and made a short film for the pro­gramme ​‘Passé-moi les jumelles’. The pro­gramme was broad­cast a year lat­er, in March 2025, and can now be viewed in the RTS media library. We would like to thank for the pleas­ant col­lab­o­ra­tion and the coher­ent insight into our atelier.

It is with great joy that we note the recent rejec­tion by the Swiss Fed­er­al Supreme Court of the appeal against the judg­ment of the Bernese High Court of Autumn 2024.

Music ther­a­pists Christo­pher Baron and Diet­mar Elsler have put their many years of expe­ri­ence and excit­ing ther­a­peu­tic approach­es with the Hang Balu on paper. It’s well worth a read. Read more here.

We are pleased to announce that on 4 Decem­ber 2024, PANArt received a new con­fir­ma­tion of copy­right on the hang from Col­mar, France. It applies not only to France, but also to Italy, Ger­many, the Nether­lands, Spain and Ire­land. In addi­tion, the rul­ing con­tains infor­ma­tion about which coun­ter­feits are like­ly to infringe the rights of authors Sabi­na Schär­er and Felix Rohner.

In the wake of the lat­est HCU-newslet­ter, we feel com­pelled to con­tribute a few clar­i­fy­ing sen­tences to the dis­cus­sion about the Bernese judge­ment, which impres­sive­ly con­firmed the copy­right pro­tec­tion of the Hang for Switzer­land, Ger­many and the Netherlands.

The Euro­pean Union Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Office (EUIPO) has made its decision.

The Supreme Court of the Can­ton of Berne (Switzer­land), on July 2, 2024 hand­ed down the long await­ed deci­sion in the pro­ceed­ings ini­ti­at­ed by 25 man­u­fac­tur­ers and deal­ers of hand­pans (“Claimants”) in Octo­ber 2020. The Court, in its thor­ough deci­sion of 95 pages, held that the HANG, in all its ver­sions, and as shown in the sketch below, is pro­tect­ed by copy­right under Swiss law, under Ger­man law and under Dutch law.

Appli­ca­tion for can­cel­la­tion of the HANG brand: PANArt will thwart this attack.

The anniver­sary year has come to an end. The PANArt team delib­er­ate­ly refrained from cel­e­bra­tions and com­mem­o­ra­tive pub­li­ca­tions. The work in progress has tak­en its course and new sound objects have been cre­at­ed under the hands of our young sound sculptors.

The Com­mer­cial Court of the Can­ton of Bern had sched­uled the main hear­ing for two days, and it indeed last­ed that long – unusu­al­ly long for a court hear­ing in Switzer­land. The court­room was filled to capacity.

A Work in Progress

Since 1993, PANArt has been a place where sound objects are cre­at­ed.

In the begin­ning it was the Sweet Sound of Steel, that strong impulse from Trinidad and Toba­go, that drove the founders to pass it on in new mate­r­i­al, new sound and dif­fer­ent shape.

Balu is the com­pre­hen­sive term for a sound body con­sist­ing of the instru­ments Balu Sei, Balu Sai, Balu Sui and Godo. The video shows the PANArt tuners play­ing the instruments. 

Last May the plain­tiffs hand­ed their reply to the court. We now have respond­ed to this reply. This clos­es the writ­ten pro­ce­dure, and the com­mer­cial court of the Can­ton of Bern (Switzer­land) is expect­ed to sum­mon the par­ties to the main hear­ing in the begin­ning of 2023. Thus, we hope for a final deci­sion regard­ing the copy­right pro­tec­tion of the HANG in 2023.

For more than 25 years, sculp­tures have been cre­at­ed in the PANArt stu­dios in Bern (Switzer­land) whose shape and sound have attract­ed the atten­tion of many peo­ple around the globe.

A peace­ful fight
F. Rohn­er

We are in a fight:
For hon­esty,
Respect and jus­tice.

Shap­ing a body with a ham­mer,
To make the spir­it and soul resound,
Old images and norms are shat­tered,
A dif­fer­ent kind of music can be heard!

45 years on the road with a ham­mer
Felix Rohn­er, tuner, recounts.

(There are Eng­lish sub­ti­tles in the Youtube interface)

What is the issue?
An attempt­ed expla­na­tion.

By Felix Rohn­er, PANArt

Click here for more ​‘Music after work’!

Youtube-Playlist

Instru­ments:

Hang Balu Sei, Sai und Sui
Balu Urgu und Hang Godo

Every year, the Edu­ca­tion and Cul­ture Depart­ment of the Can­ton of Bern awards a prize to four musi­cians.

This year, Sabi­na Schär­er and Felix Rohn­er were hon­ored for their many years of work on sound sculp­tures and in par­tic­u­lar for their cre­ation, the ​“Hang”.

Musikpreise des Kan­tons Bern 2020

The Hang®, cre­at­ed by Sabi­na Schär­er and Felix Rohn­er in 2000, and pro­duced and dis­trib­uted by PANArt Hang­bau AG, Bern, Switzer­land, is pro­tect­ed by copyright.

Why this is so, and what it means, we want to answer by means of ques­tions that are fre­quent­ly asked by sup­pli­ers of hand pans and oth­er peo­ple inter­est­ed in the topic.

PANArt Hang Man­u­fac­tur­ing Ltd. is a Swiss com­pa­ny based in Bern. The com­pa­ny is engaged in the con­struc­tion of sound sculp­tures made of ​“Pang®”, a com­pos­ite mate­r­i­al devel­oped and patent­ed by PANArt. Among oth­er things, the com­pa­ny devel­oped the now world-famous Hang® sculp­ture. Felix Rohn­er, Sabi­na Schär­er, Basil Rohn­er and David Rohn­er are present­ly work­ing in the company.

The enor­mous eco­nom­ic impor­tance of intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty for our soci­ety and the need for effi­cient legal pro­tec­tion of inno­va­tions and invest­ments in tech­nol­o­gy and cul­ture are now recognized.

Eng­lish sub­ti­tles can be acti­vat­ed in the video settings.

Con­tri­bu­tion of the Coopzeitung on the top­ics Panart, Hang and Balu, 13.01.2020

Some infor­ma­tion on pur­chas­ing old PANArt sound sculp­tures via online mar­ket­places and third parties.

Lyrics and vocals: Felix Rohn­er – Hang Bal, Hang Godo, Hang Gede: PANArt Pan­gensem­ble – Video: Basil Rohner 

In remem­brance of my grand­fa­ther who dur­ing my school holy­days let me be a part of his dai­ly work as a sheet met­al work­er, I ded­i­cate this song to all sheet met­al sound work­ers around the world.

To the Lyrics

For many years now Michael Paschko from Dort­mund has been doc­u­ment­ing and com­ment­ing on the work of PANArt Hang Man­u­fac­tur­ing Ltd. His web­site www​.hang​blog​.org has become an essen­tial source of infor­ma­tion on our activ­i­ties – not to be missed! The site has just been relaunched with up-to-date con­tent and a new layout. 

In 1976 the steel­pan arrived in Bern. In 2016 PANArt intro­duced the Hang Bal. From the ​“round the neck” steel­band via the Hang to the ​“round the shoul­der” Hang Bal Spiel.

With footage and pho­tos from PANArt’s archive, Basil Rohn­er’s video gives us an overview of 40 years of work on the ring of steel.

The Trinida­di­an peo­ple gave a gift to the world: the sweet sound of steel. Each indi­vid­ual has to find out what is meant by this gift. You have to live it, to eat it, do digest it. In 1994 the steel orches­tra Orig­i­nal Bernese Oil Com­pa­ny orga­nized the first inter­na­tion­al Pan­yard in Europe. It was an insight into the nature of this gift from Trinidad, into the nature of human beings. This is a glimpse of the clos­ing par­ty. Enjoy! 

The art of the met­al sound sculp­tor resides above all in his abil­i­ty to con­struct his sound sculp­ture as an inter­com­mu­ni­cat­ing sys­tem of ener­gy stores. The com­plex­i­ty of these instru­ments also has con­se­quences for their players. 

A song ded­i­cat­ed to sheet met­al sound sculp­tors and to those who would like to become one – by Felix Rohn­er, tuner

The call of iron has tak­en us, here at PANArt, a big step fur­ther. Pang, the sheet that serves as PANArt’s raw mate­r­i­al, has over recent months giv­en birth to nov­el res­o­nance bod­ies. These have come togeth­er to form the Pang ensem­ble. The cre­ative path has led us away from the sound sculp­ture Hang, and towards Pang’s oth­er poten­tial­i­ties: instru­ments whose bod­ies can also bring forth a dri­ving, pul­sat­ing bass. 

The Hang® Gudu is a talk­ing pot which requires nim­ble hands. This hap­pi­ly chat­ter­ing ves­sel calls for soul-infused playing. 

The deep bass sounds of Gubal, Urgu and Hang Gudu are the musi­cal foun­da­tion of the Pang ensem­ble. How­ev­er, the lit­tle loud­speak­ers in smart­phones, tablets or note­books and many ear­phones don’t play back these sounds. There­fore we rec­om­mend lis­ten­ing to this video only with good speak­ers or headphones. 

With ​‘Secrets of the Steel­pan – Unlock­ing the Secrets of the Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy, Tun­ing and Oper­a­tion of the Steel­pan’ Dr. Antho­ny Achong is pre­sent­ing his life’s work, a sum­ma­ry of his exten­sive stud­ies on the steel­pan. Here you can read a review by PANArt tuner Felix Rohner.