Sahba Aminikia’s voice just got a little louder.
The 2013 alumnus was named a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Fellow in the influential organization’s 2024 class for his work with the Flying Carpet Festival, which also led him to give one of the group’s popular TED Talks this year.
Growing up in post-revolutionary Iran, Aminikia’s Baha’i faith left him at odds with the new, conservative Islamic rule. Despite being the second-largest religious group in the country, the Baha’i have been historically persecuted, a prejudice that increased after the Iranian revolution in 1979. Despite the country’s new constitution guaranteeing religious freedom for the Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian minorities, the Baha’i went deliberately unmentioned, setting the stage for decades of human rights violations.
Aminikia left Iran at 19 for Russia, spurred by his love of Dimitri Shostakovich, before immigrating to America in 2006 to study at SFCM with David Garner, David Conte and then-chair of composition, Conrad Susa. While still a student, he got a big break thanks to one of the Bay Area’s most beloved institutions: the Kronos Quartet.
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