Tigran Hamasyan

Jazz’s international reach means that American musicians often find passionate and knowledgeable audiences overseas, but the music has also settled in far-flung lands, leading to exquisite and unexpected hybrids. Armenian pianist Tigran Hamasyan embodies the way that jazz’s fertilization with traditions unconnected by African diasporic roots can lead to startlingly powerful new forms. Taking full advantage of Miner Auditorium’s immersive media system, he presents his expansive new transmedia project, The Bird of a Thousand Voices, joined by an outstanding quintet featuring the remarkable vocalist Areni Agbabian.

His extraordinary albums document his ever-deepening engagement with Armenian folk music, and The Bird of a Thousand Voices takes his artistry to a new plateau. A reimagining of Hazaran Blbul, an ancient Armenian tale concerning a mythical bird whose songs bring harmony to the world, the work is a collaboration between the pianist, Dutch director Ruben Van Leer, and visual artist Boris Acket combining kinetic sculpture, film projections, and elaborate lighting with Hamasyan’s spellbinding music.

Winning the Montreux Jazz Festival piano competition at age 16 and the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition at 19, Hamasyan is one of his generation’s most celebrated pianists and a composer with an achingly beautiful body of compositions unlike anything else in contemporary music.