It was a love of the music of Led Zeppelin that first made Tigran Hamasyan’s parents realise their son was different from other boys his age.

The couple reached for their video camera when they found the youngster gently playing and singing the UK rockers’ classic Stairway to Heaven.

Nothing unusual there, perhaps — other than the fact he was just three years old — and living in Armenia.

“It just happened,” he says. “Perhaps, it’s because there was a lot of music at home. My grandparents were mostly listening to classical music, my father was a great fan of classic rock, and my uncle loved jazz. The house was saturated with music, and I listened and fell under its spell.” It became apparent fairly early on that Tigran had a gift.

From the age of two he had displayed an aptitude for music and, he says, the tape recorder and piano quickly became his favourite toys in the family’s home in the country’s second city Gyumri. A year later the boy, nicknamed Ashough, or “troubadour” by his mother, was belting out hits not just by messieurs Page and Plant, but by Deep Purple, The Beatles, Louis Armstrong and Queen, while accompanying himself on the piano.

“In Armenia there is this good tradition that children have to go to music school and learn how to play a musical instrument,” he says. “So there are a lot of families in Armenia that have a piano at home, even if nobody there is a professional musician. Thanks to this tradition and thanks to my family I grew up with two pianos — one at my grandma’s place and one at my parents’. “I grew up listening to a lot of classic rock music and some 1970s Herbie Hancock from the age of three. And at the age of four I was playing and singing Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath songs which I picked up by ear.”

By the time he reached seven, he had discovered jazz and began improvising on piano. “I always loved improvising and creating compositions and songs even before I knew how to read notes or what improvising and writing was,” he says.

“So creating music of my own came to me very naturally.”

Moving to the capital, Yerevan, at 11, he became a music school student, training as a classical and jazz instrumentalist. It was while studying the works of Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker that he began writing his own compositions.

“The reason I play jazz is because of my uncle Armen Hamasyan,” he says. “He was a great admirer of jazz music, and when I was 11 years old he got me the best jazz piano teacher I could have possibly wished for. His name is Vahag Hairapetyan. By studying with Vahag for almost a year I understood what jazz music was. I was very deeply into bebop and classical music at the time. That’s pretty much all the real jazz education I got.”

It also gave him his first taste of public performance. “It was a huge stage,” he recalls. “I was 11. It got a little crazy after that.”

Less than 10 years later the family moved to America, Tigran taking up a place at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Building on his love of jazz — releasing two albums exploring what he describes as the intersections of jazz, classical and rock with sounds from the Caucasus.

Two years later he was off to the Big Apple, where he released his third album, featuring self-penned compositions and arrangements of Armenian folk songs. That genre-busting fusion of East and West continues with latest album A Fable. The plaintive, dreamlike quality of his music and his use of Middle Eastern and South West Asian scales have won him fans around the world — with admirers including Jamie Cullum, Gilles Petersen, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Jools Holland, on whose ‘Later...’ show he appeared earlier this year.

“I like calling my music ‘alternative math-folk’,” he says. “I am influenced a lot by Armenian traditional music but also a million other things. Instead of using western classical vocabulary, I replace it with Armenian folk vocabulary. But not every composition I write is influenced by Armenian folk music.

“I learned how to improvise through jazz, and, for me, it’s the most incredible improvised music that exists.”

So what impact, I wonder, did his move to America have on his career as a touring artist? “I think I would still have been a musician if I’d stayed in Armenia, but I don’t think I would have been touring as much as I do now. I had opportunities to meet and to collaborate with great musicians outside of Armenia, most of which wouldn’t have been possible had I stayed there.”

The latest opportunity is a concert at the North Wall Arts centre, in Summertown, on Sunday. His performances are also visual affairs, with the pianist invariably tackling some decrepit instrument, better suited for a museum.

“I love playing old destroyed upright pianos,” he says. “There are certain compositions that sound better on those pianos than on an amazing Steinway.”

  • Tigran plays the North Wall, Oxford on Sunday, 8pm
  • Tickets: £15 from thenorthwall.org