Tigran Hamasyan

A true piano virtuoso with a powerful groove, Hamasyan effortlessly fuses intense jazz improvisation and progressive rock with the rich folk music of his native Armenia. Born in 1987 in Gyumri, he began his musical journey in childhood, at home, where he was exposed to a wide variety of influences. He started playing piano at the age of three, performed in festivals and competitions from the age of eleven, and won the Montreux Jazz Festival piano competition in 2003. He released his first album, World Passion, in 2004, at just seventeen years old. The following year, he won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition. His other albums include New Era, Red Hail, A Fable — for which he received a Victoires de la Musique award —, Shadow Theater and Luys i Luso, recorded with the Yerevan State Chamber Choir, focusing on Armenian sacred music from the 5th to the 20th century. His first album on Nonesuch, Mockroot (2015), won an Echo Jazz Award for best international instrumentalist (piano). This was followed by An Ancient Observer (2017), the EP For Gyumri (2018), Revisiting the Film (2021) and StandArt (2022). In 2021, he also received the Deutscher Jazzpreis in the international piano/keyboards category. He has released albums on Plus Loins, Universal France, Nonesuch and ECM.

His new conceptual album The Bird of a Thousand Voices is set to be released in August 2024 on naïve, marking his first collaboration with the label. Tigran composes, orchestrates, and arranges a highly anticipated project, blending his folk roots with rock influences. The first single, “The Kingdom,” also exists as an interactive experience via an online game. This double album is inspired by an ancient Armenian tale in which a hero journeys into invisible worlds to find a mythical bird with a thousand songs, capable of awakening people and bringing harmony back to the world. The stage version, a transmedia musical theatre work blending