Tigran Hamasyan won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition in 2006, but the music that resonates even deeper for him is centuries removed — and a sound world away — from jazz.
Hamasyan's new album, Luys I Luso (Light from Light), is an arresting exploration of ancient sacred music from his native Armenia. But there's a twist. Hamasyan merges the old chants and sharakans (hymns) with improvisational, jazz-inflected piano. The results are mysterious yet modern, as if a choir of 5th century monks interrupted Keith Jarrett's Köln Concert.
In some songs, Hamasyan's piano simply paints harmonic backdrops; in others, he interlaces improvisations, inspired by jazz and the ancient music at hand. The piano parts are never written out, so Hamasyan's performances sound fresh each time.
![The first column in this manuscript includes the hymn (sharakan) "Bazum en Qo gtutyunqd" by Mesrop Mashtots.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/63f662c/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1000x1352+0+0/resize/880x1190!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.npr.org%2Fassets%2Fimg%2F2015%2F10%2F08%2FSWL-Hamasyanscript_custom-657812664003a48aa4c1d73b193c7c2112a6ecef.jpg)
"Your Mercy is Boundless" (Bazum en Qo gtutyunqd) is a penitential chant for fasting days, composed by Mesrop Mashtots, a theologian, linguist and hymnologist who lived at the turn of the 4th and 5th Centuries. Members of the Yerevan State Chamber Choir establish a hazy, multi-layered drone for the soloists to float over, while Hamasyan's piano rolls out chords of exotic color. The original sharakan would have been sung in a single melodic thread, but Hamasyan thickens the weave with companion melodies and ethereal effects, including a scat-like vocalise and rippling piano filigree.
Having heard the old Armenian sacred tunes since he was a teenager, Hamasyan felt a duty to acknowledge the ancient music. "In Armenia, after the Soviet Union and almost a hundred years of atheism, a lot of things have been, I don't want to say forgotten, but haven't developed greatly," he told his record label. "The music was in the shadow."
But the shadows are receding, at least a little. With Luys I Luso, Hamasyan is shining his own unique light on his homeland's ancient traditions.
Luys i Luso is out now on ECM.
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