Pianist Tigran Hamasyan is a private figure who doesn’t overly expose himself on social media hence why we haven’t heard much from him since the release of his Nonesuch debut Mockroot last February. If you dig a little, however, you will find out that the young pianist has been hard at work on a new project called Luys i Luso for piano and voices featuring the Yerevan State Chamber Choir conducted by Harutyun Topikyan. “Tigran’s new musical undertaking is the fresh and attractively youthful representation of the Armenian sacred music of the 5th to 20th centuries from his perspective and will be released by the internationally acclaimed record label ECM in September 2015. The repertoire ranges from enthralling hymns and sharakans (genre of Armenian chants) to breathtaking cantos by Grigor Narekatsi, Nerses Shnorhali, Mesrop Mashtots, Mkhitar Ayrivanetsi, Grigor Pahlavuni, Komitas, Makar Yekmalyan, etc., arranged for piano and voices by the pianist himself. All the compositions apart from “Patriarchal Ode” (Հայրապետական մաղթերգ) are written in grabar, also known as Classical Armenian – the oldest attested form of the Armenian Language.” Hamasyan premiered the project last March in Yerevan and followed with 100 performances in churches in Georgia, Turkey, Lebanon, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Czech Republic, England, Germany, Luxembourg, Russia and USA. The entire tour and the concerts were recorded by a professional camera crew under the supervision of Emily Mkrtichian and Alex Igidbashian and will be released as a separate film in 2016. Until then, a new video, filmed in 2011 in Armenia, has just been released for the song “Lament” off Hamasyan’s 2013 release Shadow Theater. Check it out below the jump.
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