An old Armenian folktale about the search for world harmony spectacularly comes to life with a concert in a fantastic moving stage setting with an intriguing light show.

The virtuoso jazz-meets-rock pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan won a major award at North Sea Jazz and has been named International Artist of the Year 2021 in Germany. Having returned to Armenia from the United States, he ingeniously blends traditional music from his birth country into his compositions and improvisations. For The Bird of a Thousand Voices, he is collaborating with director Ruben Van Leer, known for his poetic, ground-breaking transmedia projects, and with visual artist Boris Acket handling the scenography. With Hamasyan’s brand-new semi-improvised music, the angelic singing voice of Areni Agbabian, textual adaptation by Florian Hellwig and an interactive light installation, they bring the myth preoccupying Hamasyan since childhood to life.

The mythological bird appears in many different cultures and often symbolises resurrection and awakening. In the Armenian tradition, its power is found in its song. In order to find the Bird of a Thousand Voices, “the path of no return” must first be taken through black, white and red worlds with endless deserts, cold mountain winters, turbulent rivers and hunted by condemnations, betrayal and forty-headed demons…