Yerevan, Armenia born composer Arman Peshtmaljyan’s creative world revolves around creative loops, the importance of teamwork above genre, and the keys to his piano.
Arman remembers his little hands groping for piano keys he barely reached. That image of a toddler enthralled by the sounds coming out of an instrument too big for him feels like the perfect metaphor for his entire artistic path. Decades later, after studying at conservatories in Armenia and Switzerland, performing with the Armenian State Jazz Orchestra and releasing music that combines dream pop with psychedelic soul, Peshtmaljyan hasn’t stopped yearning for something just beyond of his grasp. He’s simply figured out how to make the stretch worth it.
“My earliest memories are trying to reach the keys of the piano with my tiny hands and being fascinated by the sounds I could make.” He continues in the kind of effortless assurance that comes from someone who has spent substantial time both on stage and in the studio: “When I was a kid, I was always listening to music, and that curiosity has just become a lifelong passion.
What is remarkable about Peshtmaljyan is not only his artistic breadth, but his fearlessness in straying from a path that no longer serves him. He was taught percussion and drums as a foundation for the development of rhythm as a boy. He took the advice to heart, studying formally at college and university. But something wasn’t clicking.
“From the very beginning I was more interested in writing songs than in playing them,” he says. The drums were a technically sound exercise, but they weren’t giving him what he needed. The piano gave him something more, flexibility, depth, the means to communicate the concepts that had been growing in his head.
So he self taught. He quietly learned piano on his own time and on his own terms, while still formally studying drums. Soon after, the self-taught instrument became his main instrument. There’s no malice in the way he portrays this pivot, simply clarity. He knew what he wanted and went after it.
This trend continues in his career, formal studies at the Komitas Yerevan State Conservatory and later at the Jazzcampus of Switzerland the Basel Academy of Music, along with tireless self education. But he’s really open about where the true learning took place. “Some of the best lessons were live performances. Touring and working with musicians of different backgrounds,” he says.Those real-life musical experiences taught me things that no institution can properly teach.”
The list of musical influences Peshtmaljyan cites feels like a planned collision of seemingly irreconcilable worlds like Komitas, Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, Brad Mehldau, Herbie Hancock, Men I Trust, The Marías. When asked to explain his sound he refuses to confine it to a single genre. Instead, he discusses layers. “My musical language is very diverse and multi-layered,” he explains. “I don’t even come at music stylistically. “
“I take my creative thinking from alternative rock, indie pop, folk and modern jazz.”
The result is music that resists being easily categorized and, in today’s algorithm-driven music industry, is both a strength and a complication. His song “Ays Gisher” (“This Evening”) is possibly his most definitive expression of intent. It’s dream pop meets psychedelic soul, built on airy atmospheres and a sensation of weightlessness. The song is about the boundary between reality and hallucination, but for Peshtmaljyan it is more about how it all came together.
“I loved the fact that making this song never felt like a normal songwriting process,” he says. It was just a method to put down how I feel and the sort of vibe I always want to feel and share with people. “I wrote the lyrics, melody and harmony very naturally, without thinking too much or struggling.”
That sort of ease, he knows now he can trust, but it took years to come to.
He has discovered that the best creative moments happen when you stop forcing things and let inspiration guide you.
Walk into any conversation with Peshtmaljyan about his work and collaboration emerges as the core notion, not a nice addition, but foundational. He leads his own bands and projects and at the same time participates in the work of other artists. He is a member of the Armenian State Jazz Orchestra, the Armenian Navy Band and many bands of modern music. Genres may vary, but the idea is constant: progress comes when different voices come together.
“Collaboration is one of the most important aspects of the music industry,” he simply says. “When we work together we grow and learn and build something larger than ourselves.”
But the most exciting thing, he says, is the ecosystem that has emerged in Armenia itself, a web of musicians that creates ongoing opportunities for interchange. This isn’t about competitiveness or hierarchy. It’s about knowing that the person on stage next to you might see something in the music you haven’t seen, might take you to places you couldn’t have gotten to on your own.
When asked what he loves most about performing live, Peshtmaljyan doesn’t mention awards or faultless execution. He talks about energy, the one off, incomparable experience of seeing an audience engage with music in real time.
“The thing I enjoy most at live performances is the energy I receive from the audience the moment they get pleasure from the music I play,” he says. “I get a unique feeling and inspiration as an artist when I see people connecting with the music, feeling emotions and becoming part of the performance.”
To him a concert is not a one-way conveyance of sound. It’s a business deal. The musicians provide something, the audience receives and responds, and that response generates fuel for the next instant, the next phrase. Each audience is unique. That’s the thing that makes it alive. “You never know what kind of energy or emotions or inspiration the audience will give you back,” he says. “That unpredictability is one of the most beautiful things about doing live stuff.
At this point in his career Peshtmaljyan is less concerned with exploring genres for the sake of it, and more with synthesising the influences that have influenced him into something uniquely distinctive. He has several record projects in different stages of development, each showing a different side of his artistic identity. He is working on two new projects that he calls “genuinely exciting” and will be announced soon.
When younger musicians ask him for guidance and they do, his answer is always the same: keep curious, keep open, work persistently, and be ready when opportunities come. “Hard work is what helps you move forward and build a lasting career,” he says. “Sometimes, success is about being in the right place at the right time. But you have to be ready to notice those moments and act on them.”
He is not a mystic and doesn’t ruminate about waiting for the muse. Simply knowing that inspiration is real and good, but it works better when it finds a mind and hands that have spent years preparing themselves to receive it. A kid stretching for piano keys. A youthful musician self teaching an instrument at night. A composer learning to trust the creative circle, to let ideas beget ideas, until something honest emerges.
This is how Arman Peshtmaljyan actually sounds, not a style, but a process. Not a destination but a direction, a continuous one since their little fingers first touched the keyboard.