Sahba Aminikia

Sahba Aminikia is an Iranian American composer and the recipient of various commissions from theatre troops to contemporary classical ensembles and film scores. He has performed with Persian traditional music groups and jazz bands including Kronos Quartet, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Symphony Parnassus, San Francisco Conservatory of Music New Music Ensemble, Mobius Trio, Delphi Trio, and Living Earth Show. 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 The Financial Times as “An experience not to be easily forgotten”. His music has been widely performed in United States, Canada, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Ecuador, France, Italy, Poland, China, Greece, Turkey and Israel and at venues such Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Le Poisson Rouge, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SF Exploratorium, SFJazz and Saint Anne’s Warehouse. His Tar o Pood (Warp and Weft), 2014, commissioned by Nasrin Marzban for Kronos Quartet was the second-place recipient of the American Prize 2015 in composition, professional chamber music category. He was recently the artist-in-residence at Kronos Festival 2017, an annual festival held by legendary Kronos Quaretet at San Francisco SFJAZZ throughout which ten of his works including four new pieces were performed. His most recent piece for the same festival was a collaboration between Kronos Quartet, San Francisco Girls Chorus and Afghanistan National Institute of Music which resulted in a 20-minute choral piece named “Music of Spheres.” Aminikia was called by the San Francisco Chronicle, “an artist singularly equipped to provide a soundtrack to these unsettling times”.