The pianist Tigran Hamasyan, who hails from Armenia but also lived for a long period in the United States, emerged in the mid-2000s with his own brand of bebop fusion jazz. Over time, he has shifted towards avant-garde jazz with elements of Armenian folk music and progressive music. In fact, his albums, which have all been released under major record labels (Verve, Nonesuch and ECM), always manage to produce something new, though the influence of Armenian folk and sacred music is still readily apparent, even on his records that lean more towards modern classic pop music. After a memorable concert in 2015, Hamasyan returns to Müpa Budapest with a new album.
By the age of three, Tigran Hamasyan, who comes from an artisan family of jewellery and clothes makers, was already displaying his talent on the family piano. His versatility is demonstrated by the fact that he wanted to be a thrash metal guitarist as a teenager, an attraction that is most evident in his third full-length album, the 2009 prog-jazz Red Hail. By that time he was living in America, was already considered a huge talent and had won a host of awards. Yet it was only at this point that he began to find his true voice, heavily influenced by his Armenian musical roots (he later returned to live in Yerevan). The result was two hugely successful albums released under Verve Records (A Fable, 2011; Shadow Theater, 2013), before he reached another peak with the 2015, Mockroot, released by Nonesuch. With ECM Records, he brought out an album of religious choral works in memory of the Armenian Genocide (Luys i Luso, 2015), then a classic ECM ambient jazz record as part of a superstar quartet (alongside Arve Henriksen, Eivind Aarset and Jan Bang). He has also released solo piano recordings, written film scores and enjoyed a few surprising collaborations (with the leader singer of System of a Down, Serj Tankian, for example, and the electronic dance music duo LV). At his second Hungarian concert, together with the other members of his trio Tigran will present the album StandArt, released in this year. After his 2020 album The Call Within, which was highly personal in tone and delved into Armenia's past, this year, for the first time in his career Hamasyan is covering American jazz standards from the 1920s to the 1950s.
Presented by: Müpa Budapest
Tigran Hamasyan Trio:
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