Tigran Hamasyan (Armenian: Տիգրան Համասյան; born July 17 1987) is an Armenianjazzpianist and composer. He plays mostly original compositions, strongly influenced by the Armenian folk tradition, often using its scales and modalities. In addition to this folk influence, Hamasyan is influenced by American jazz traditions and, to some extent, as on his album Red Hail, by progressive rock. His solo album A Fable is most strongly influenced by Armenian folk music. Even in his most overt jazz compositions and renditions of well-known jazz pieces, his improvisations often contain embellishments based on scales from Middle Eastern/Southwest Asian traditions.[1]
Early life
Hamasyan was born in Gyumri, Armenia.[2] His ancestors were from the Kars region.[3] His father was a jeweler and his mother designed clothes.[4] At the age of three he began to play melodies on his family's piano, and he went to a music school from the age of six.[4] As a young child, he dreamed of being a thrash metal guitarist.[4]
He studied jazz from the age of nine, then tried to incorporate local folk melodies into jazz-form improvisations when in his teens.[4] At this stage, Hamasyan was influenced by Armenian composers Arno Babajanian and Avet Terterian.[4] Hamasyan, together with his parents and sister, moved to Yerevan when he was around 10,[5] and then to California when he was 16. He currently resides in Yerevan, Armenia.[6]
Career
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Hamasyan recorded his first album, World Passion, at the age of 18.[4] He spent a lot of 2013 in Armenia, which helped develop his interest in its folk music.[4] He was the leader of the "Aratta Rebirth", with which he performed Red Hail. On April 29, 2022, Nonesuch Records released Hamasyan's first album of American standards - StandArt. The project was recorded in the spring of 2021 in Los Angeles and includes 9 songs from the 1920s through the 1950s, by Richard Rodgers, Charlie Parker, Jerome Kern, David Raksin, and others. Bassist Matt Brewer, drummer Justin Brown, trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, saxophonist and label-mate Joshua Redman, and saxophonist Mark Turner collaborated with the pianist and contributed to the recording.[7]
Awards
Mural of Tigran in Gyumri
2002: 3rd Prize Concours International de Piano-Jazz Martial Solal (Paris).
2003: 1st Prize Jazz à Juan Révélations in the jazz instrumental category.
2003: 1st Prize Prix de la Critique et du Public, Concours de Piano du Montreux Jazz Festival.
2005: 3rd Prize Concours de Piano-Jazz de Moscou.
2005: 1st Prize 8ème Concours de Solistes de Jazz de Monaco.
^"Mockroot Track by Track from Tigran Hamasyan". Nonesuch Records. 20 November 2014. Archived from the original on 4 December 2020. Retrieved 2 March 2021. "Kars 1" and "Kars 2 (Wounds of the Centuries)" are written about the town of Kars, the ancestral home of Tigran's maternal grandparents, a place that became part of Turkey in the years that followed the infamous Ottoman genocide of Armenians during the First World War.
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