JILL L. FERGUSON
Sahba Aminikia was called by the San Francisco Chronicle “an artist singularly equipped to provide a soundtrack to these unsettling times". Aminikia lives in the United States, but his family is from Iran. Early this month, his work was part of a festival by the world-famous Kronos Quartet, for whom Aminikia is writer-in-residence. His mother, a U.S. green card holder who is in Tehran, was caught in the travel ban issued by President Trump, so she missed the early February festival at SFJazz that included her son’s music.
Aminikia’s compositions are haunting and ethereal and combine elements from both eastern and western musical traditions to create sounds that are as exotic as they are familiar.
Welum caught up with the 35- year-old composer to ask about his music and how beauty and ethics are taken into account in his artistic creations and in his life.