" The music of Iranian-American composer Sahba Aminikia is analogous to water. Variably complex or simple, it flows in gentle, naturally syncopated rhythms and structures reminiscent of light rain falling amid sunshine on a rooftop in one work, while another piece’s metronomic regularity is like a steadily dripping faucet. A third piece arrives fully orchestrated with the torrential swoosh of a downpour."
- SF Classical Voice
“an artist singularly equipped to provide a soundtrack to these unsettling times”
- San Francisco Chronicle
Photo: TED / Ryan Lash
Sahba Aminikia is an independent Iranian American composer, TED Fellow, Founder and Artistic Director of Flying Carpet Festival, and educator who believes in music as a catalyst for change.
Born in post-revolutionary wartime Iran, Aminikia grew up amidst a turbulent socio-political environment. This upbringing shaped his artistic sensibilities, instilling in him a desire to use music as a medium for communication and dialogue. Deeply influenced by the poetry of Hafiz, Rumi, and Saadi, alongside classical, traditional, and jazz music, as well as iconic albums by Pink Floyd, The Beatles, and Queen, Aminikia views music as a transcendent yet visceral human experience. His work often reflects on the dualities of existence, exploring themes of enlightenment amid darkness and the triumph of hope.
Aminikia’s musical journey began under the mentorship of prominent Iranian composer, Mehran Rouhani, a Royal Academy of Music graduate and Iranian pianists such as Nikan Milani, Safa Shahidi, and Gagik Babayan. He furthered his education at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory in Russia, studying under Boris Ivanovic Tishchenko, a protégé of Dmitri Shostakovich. Aminikia later earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music with honors at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, studying under David Garner, Dan Becker and David Conte and supported by a prestigious scholarship from Phyllis Wattis Foundation. Over the years, he has also benefited from guidance by luminaries such as Conrad Susa, David Harrington, Aleksandra Vrebalov, John Corigliano, and Oswaldo Golijov.
Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “an artist singularly equipped to provide a soundtrack to these unsettling times,”. His third string quartet, “A Threnody for Those Who Remain", commissioned by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Kronos Performing Arts Association, was described by Financial Times as “An experience not to be easily forgotten”.
Aminikia’s compositions have been performed across the globe, including in the United States, Canada, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Ecuador, France, Italy, Poland, China, Greece, Turkey and Israel, at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, SFJAZZ, St. Anne’s Warehouse, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SF Exploratorium and Le Poisson Rouge. His works have been commissioned by a variety of ensembles, including numerous pieces and arrangements for award-winning Kronos Quartet, ZOFO Duet, San Francisco Girls Chorus, Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat, Shahram Nazeri, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Music of Remembrance, San Diego Symphony, Chicago Symphony, One Found Sound, Akron Symphony, The Living Earth Show, and Symphony Parnassus. Notable pieces include A Threnody for Those Who Remain, acclaimed by the Financial Times as “an experience not to be easily forgotten,” and Tar o Pood (Warp and Weft), a second-place recipient of the American Prize in Composition.
In 2017, Aminikia was the artist-in-residence at the Kronos Festival, where 10 of his compositions, including new premieres, were performed. His featured work, Music of Spheres, a collaboration between Kronos Quartet, San Francisco Girls Chorus, and Afghanistan National Institute of Music, was released on Orange Mountain Music. Aminikia’s music was featured on Guardian’s Sear Prayer a VR experience based on Khaled Hosseini’s poignant text featuring Kronos Quartet and British multi-instrumentalist, David Coulter.
Aminikia’s recent projects include SHAMS, a one-hour choral piece inspired by Persian poetry of Rumi, created in collaboration with Verdigris Ensemble, and The Language of the Birds, an hour-long multimedia piece composed during a residency at 836M Gallery. Additionally, he composed Four Seasons, a reimagining of Vivaldi’s work as a threnody for ecological disaster at Iran’s Lake Urmia, commissioned for Kronos Quartet’s 50th Anniversary.
Aminikia is the Artistic Director of the Flying Carpet Festival, a mobile music festival bringing hope and beauty to children in war-torn areas. He also serves as the Musical Director for Sirkhane, a non-profit organization in Mardin, Turkey, near the Syrian border impacting over 400,000 children through music and circus arts.
from my own mouth:
The dichotomy between light and dark, to me, is clear; yet, through music, I aim to find the moment where the former emerges. Growing in a newly born democracy amid war and in the aftermath of a revolution, I, along with many in my generation, experienced a tumultuous childhood. We witnessed the evolution of a grassroots movement: from mass-executions, war, and violence into a society where internet and social media continues to alter the political and social infrastructure. I was born and raised in Tehran, where the traditions of the past and the most progressive influences of the region are constantly in a state of struggle. Living in such a conflict, I needed to define my own identity, dismissing a wide variety of the choices that were already made for me and my peers.
In the Iran of 1980s, music was completely banned from media and live events. It was only permissible in public in the format of revolutionary chants and Quran recitations. Later on, in the late 1980s, Persian traditional music and western classical music were added to this list. Moreover. women have always been banned from singing in public, starting with the Islamic revolution and with the downfall of the Shah in 1979. Later, from the very early days that I started living outside of Iran, I realized that being brought up in such circumstances had given me a hopeful outlook.
Life in Tehran taught me to appreciate hardship and beauty at the same time, and this is something that, due to heavy media propaganda, is mainly obscured in Western minds. I was brought up with the poetry of Hafiz, Rumi, and Saadi, and with Persian classical music, but was also largely exposed to the music of Pink Floyd, Beatles, Queen, and various jazz musicians. This conflict between the morals of a theocracy and Western cultural imports also exists in my mind, and I see it as a life process towards finding a common ground for communication and dialogue in my music.
I respect music as a medium of communication, enabling me to share my experiences with audiences of different backgrounds. Recognizing hope and beauty in the most horrific human experiences, I often aim to include people of different backgrounds in a process that sympathetically understands what our fellow humans endure. The result has the potential to further develop a particular sensitivity in human beings which enables us to immerse in our fellow humans’ griefs and joys, considering them our own. Saadi Shirazi, the 13th-century Persian poet, depicts this mind-set marvelously:
"Human beings are members of a whole
In creation of one essence and soul.
If one member is afflicted with pain
Other members uneasy will remain.
If you have no sympathy for human pain
The name of human you cannot retain.”