TIGRAN HAMASYAN “Manifeste”

Photo : Arnos Martirosyan

During the 3rd edition of the Eclats d’Email Jazz Edition, particularly on November 17 and 18 of 2008, the Limoges audience of the Théatre Expression 7 discovered a 21-year-old phenomenon. Two evenings, two solo pianos, two exceptional concerts, two moments engraved forever. Nowadays, Tigran Hamasyan is considered as one of the most remarkable and distinctive jazz/rock pianists/composers of his generation. A piano virtuoso with a powerful groove, Hamasyan seamlessly blends a powerful jazz improvisation and progressive rock with the rich folk music of his native Armenia. Often compared to Keith Jarrett for his tormented performances, he achieves high levels of intensity. For this 20th edition, he is back with the most ambitious project in his career after 5 years of conceptualizing, “The Bird Of a Thousand Voices”. Inspired by an eponymous Armenian mythological tale (Hazaran Blbul) and staged in particular under various forms of cinematic fictions, Tigran Hamasyan immerses us into an old oral and cultural tradition from his home country,  the tradition of “the Bird of the thousand voices”. In a fervent dialogue with his three other musicians and Areni Agbadian, a singer with an angelic voice, he delivers the depth of this project developed during the months of confinement in his home studio of Los Angeles (the pianist has since returned to Armenia with his family to get back to his homeland threatened by neighbouring Azerbaijan) and nurtured by his long-standing collaboration with drummer and sound engineer Nate Wood, with whom Tigran recorded the project basics. This repertoire includes as well traditional Armenian melodies (such as those he recorded with the Erevan National Choir in 2024 for ECM) as others, created with his hands, which, in his own words, “could have been composed in ancient times”. Convinced that this immemorial initiatory tale holds      “the power of showing us a way towards the deepest part of ourselves and of transforming ourselves, in order to help us discover what we are able to accomplish so as to change the world”, the pianist claims the spiritual dimension of his work of which he wants to believe that, in the troubled times we are living in, it can help us reconnect with inner harmony and peace.

Line-up :
Tigran Hamasyan – Piano / Claviers / Chant
Yessai Karapetian – Claviers
Marc Karapetian – Basse / Chant
Arman Mnatsakanyan – Batterie

REDUCED PRICE : For more information, please contact the Opéra de Limoges – Grand Théâtre : 05 55 45 95 95 / billetterie@operalimoges.fr