Tigran Hamasyan

A true virtuoso pianist with powerful groove, Hamasyan easily fuses intense jazz improvisation and progressive rock with the rich folklore music of his native Armenia.

Born in 1987 in Gyumri, he began his musical journey in childhood, in his home, where he was exposed to great diversity of influences.

He began piano at age three, performed in festivals and competitions from age eleven, and won the piano competition at the Montreux Jazz Festival 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.

Among his other albums are New Era, Red Hail, A Fable — for which he receives a Victoires de la Musique —, Shadow Theater and Luys i Luso, recorded with the State Chamber Choir of Yerevan, focusing on sacred Armenian music from the 5th to 20th centuries.

His first album with Nonesuch, Mockroot (2015), wins an Echo Jazz Award for Best International Instrumentalist (piano). Following are An Ancient Observer (2017), the EP For Gyumri (2018), Revisiting the Film (2021) and StandArt (2022).

In 2021, he also receives the Deutscher Jazzpreis in the international piano/keyboards category. He has released albums with Plus Loins, Universal France, Nonesuch and ECM.

His new conceptual album The Bird of a Thousand Voices is released in August 2024 on naïve, marking his first collaboration with the label. Tigran composes, orchestrates and arranges a highly anticipated project, blending his folklore 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 travels to invisible worlds to find a mythical bird with a thousand songs, capable of awakening peoples and restoring harmony to the world. The stage version, a transmedia musical theatre work that mixes