Innovative jazz pianist to perform in Cincinnati

  • 2025-02-05
A pianist who successfully combines rock and jazz in a piano performance will appear soon in Cincinnati.

Tigran Hamasyan is a native of Armenia who began playing the piano when he was three. His childhood home was filled with music that led him to develop a unique style that fuses progressive rock with jazz improvisation, with a dash of Armenian folk music.

By the age of eleven, he was entering competitions and playing at festivals, and in 2003, at age 16, he won the piano competition at the Montreux Jazz Festival. The following year he released “World Passion,” his debut album, then went on to win the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition.

In 2015, he made his debut on the Nonesuch label with “Mockroot,” which won the Echo Jazz Award for “International piano Instrumentalist of the Year.” In 2021, Hamasyan won the Deutscher Jazzpreis International in the “Piano/Keyboards” category.

His most recent recording is 2024’s innovative concept album, “The Bird of a Thousand Voices.” The project blends folk and rock and is based on an Armenian folktale about a hero who finds a mythical bird and brings it back to his homeland. The legend says that the bird has a thousand songs that will bring harmony to the land.

Hamasyan will appear at the Ludlow Garage on March 26 to present the concert version of “Bird of a Thousand Voices.” When they schedule shows like this, venues can use poster printing to create advertising for them.