Darde Moshtarak(Shared Pain) Performed by Kronos Quartet and Shiraz Choir

Dear Friends,

In September 2022, the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of morality police sparked an ongoing series of protests against the state's gender apartheid. The Islamic republic's violent crackdown on the protestors has escalated this movement into a full-blown uprising across the country and around the globe. In Iran, protests have been happening daily for the past 2.5 months. 16,813 people have been arrested, and 402 have been gunned down by the security forces, 58 of whom were minors. The Iranian people's revolution asks for FREEDOM and EQUALITY for all.

Kronos Quartet in rehearsal

This song was originally written by renowned Iranian musician Parviz Meshkatian, and speaks of unity among those enduring the same pain generated by injustice, discrimination, and violation of human rights globally. The piece was arranged by me and was performed by my dear friends and amazing artists at the grammy-winning Kronos Quartet, who are always there holding a flag against tyranny and dictatorship.

The singers featured in the piece are from Shiraz Choir and Ensemble, a community-based Persian-speaking choir based in San Francisco South Bay and conducted by my friend Amin Assadi. And the video was created by my friend and very talented artist, Nima Dehghani, and features images of young adults and children who unfortunately passed away during recent events in Iran. May this work be the bearer of hope and our love for the Iranian people. Thanks, Sahba

Cultural Landscapes of Confinement with Sahba Aminikia and Aleksandra Vrebalov

Composers Sahba Aminikia and Aleksandra Vrebalov speak of their involvement with the Flying Carpet Children’s Festival, an annual arts festival, founded and directed by Aminikia, that takes place each summer along the Syrian-Turkish border. In an environment of intense stress where youth face a magnitude of challenges, Aminikia, Vrebalov, and an international team of volunteer artists work together to bring inclusive, safe, and engaging educational and cultural activities that aid in directing expressions of trauma and in navigating the perils of a transitional state of belonging. The result is an empowering humanistic exchange marked by collective transformations. This event is part of the 2021-22 KHC and National Endowment for the Humanities Colloquium, “Incarceration, Transformation & Paths to Liberation during the Holocaust and Beyond.” The event is organized by the KHC in partnership with the Queensborough Performing Arts Center (QPAC) at Queensborough Community College (QCC) and is co-sponsored by the Holocaust, Genocide and Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan College; the Ray Wolpow Institute at Western Washington University; the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers University; and the Department of Music at QCC. For more information about the KHC, please visit:

https://khc.qcc.cuny.edu

Sahba Aminikia On Art Restart

Host Pier Carlo Talenti interviews artists who are shaking up the status quo to learn how they are reinventing their fields and building a new landscape for the arts.

Sahba Aminikia is an Iranian American composer, musician and educator based in San Francisco whose own musical training spanned three continents. He first studied composition in the city of his birth, Tehran, and then relocated to Russia to attend the St. Petersburg State Conservatory. After emigrating as a refugee to San Francisco in 2006, Sahba then earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

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