Pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan’s rendition of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s “All the Things You Are,” featuring Mark Turner on tenor saxophone, is out today on Nonesuch Records. The track, a visualizer for which may be seen below, is the second single from StandArt, Hamasyan’s first album of American standards, due April 29. The album includes songs from the 1920s through the 1950s, by Richard Rodgers, Charlie Parker, Elmo Hope, David Raksin, and others; it also includes a piece Hamasyan improvised with his bandmates—bassist Matt Brewer and drummer Justin Brown—and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, who is featured on two of the album’s tracks. Special guests also include saxophonist and label-mate Joshua Redman on Charlie Parker’s “Big Foot.” StandArt is available to pre-order here, with an instant download of “All the Things You Are, as well as the previously released rendition of Elmo Hope’s “De-Dah.”

On collaborating with Mark Turner, Hamasyan says: “When Mark and I started playing for the first time, I just had that feeling that we have been playing together for many years. Things were flowing naturally. Mark’s sound and playing are so dear to me that every note he would play would make me feel like home. 'All the Things You Are' is a very personal piece for me, and I have only played it alone at home just for myself and the angels that might have been listening to it. Mark approached this piece with such delicacy and fragility that I felt like the angels had begun singing along with me. It really felt like a special moment, and I am forever grateful that Mark came to the studio on such last-minute notice.”

Produced by Hamasyan and recorded last spring in Los Angeles, StandArt is Hamasyan’s first release of American music, having previously only released original compositions and traditional Armenian music. “With this record, I really wanted to apply different techniques and ideas I’ve developed over the years to a repertoire that I finally had an opportunity to re-visit, and to send a message that I really appreciate this music and am thankful for it,” he says. “I love these compositions and melodies so much that, to me, it’s like Armenian folk music. As an immigrant—an Armenian-American—I relate to these composers and musicians from various backgrounds who have that kind of history, a dark history, but managed to succeed in an embodiment of freedom. In that way, I feel like I want to be part of this, to find something in the tradition of where I came from.”

Hamasyan embarks on a US tour in June, with dates in Boulder, Chicago, Washington, DC, New York City, and a concluding performance at the Ford Amphitheater in Los Angeles on June 16. He also has upcoming dates in France, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Spain, Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands, and the UK. See below for all of the currently announced shows; for all the latest, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.

StandArt follows Hamasyan’s 2020 album, The Call Within, which took inspiration from his interest in maps from different eras, along with poetry, Christian and pre-Christian Armenian folk stories and legends, astrology, geometry, ancient Armenian design, rock carvings, and cinematography—blurring lines between historic reality and the imaginary world. It was included on Album of the Year lists by BBC Music Magazine and Jazzwise, which called it “an exceptional recording for exceptional times” and Hamasyan’s “strongest artistic statement yet.”

Hamasyan began playing piano at the age of three and started performing in festivals and competitions when he was eleven, winning the Montreux Jazz Festival’s piano competition in 2003. He released his debut album, World Passion, in 2005 at the age of seventeen. The following year, he won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition. Additional albums include New Era; Red Hail; A Fable, for which he was awarded a Victoires de la Musique (the equivalent of a Grammy Award in France); Shadow Theater; and Luys i Luso. His Nonesuch debut, Mockroot (2015), won the Echo Jazz Award for International Piano Instrumentalist of the Year; subsequent records for the label include An Ancient Observer (2017) and the companion EP, For Gymuri (2018). Last year, he was awarded for the Deutscher Jazzpreis international category in Piano/Keyboards. In addition to awards and critical praise, Hamasyan has built a dedicated international following, as well as praise from Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Brad Mehldau.

TIGRAN HAMASYAN ON TOUR