Tigran Hamasyan Trio

Making the near seem foreign, the foreign seem near: perhaps this is how one could describe the pianist Tigran Hamasyan. His Armenian homeland, with its heritage stretching between Asia and Europe, shapes his music - as does jazz, rock music and even heavy metal. All of this flows into Hamasyan's playing and creates extraordinary productive fields of tension. Born in 1987, Hamasyan was soon regarded as a child prodigy. At the age of 19, he won the renowned Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition. His debut album was released in the same year. When Brad Mehldau heard the record, he was both thrilled and confused. In an article for the New York Times, he stated that it had "a really wild odd meter and this distorted, aggressive piano treatment. You want to bob your head, in this really cool way, but it's also jazz...". With his trio, Hamasyan has found a fascinatingly symbiotic unity, so that something can happen on stage in beautiful Neustadt that the two-time winner of the German Jazz Prize once described in an interview as follows: "I really let go, venture into the unknown. It helps to play 'completely without purpose'."