Sahba Aminikia

Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “an artist singularly equipped to provide a soundtrack to these unsettling times”, Sahba Aminikia is an Iranian American San Francisco-based composer, TED Fellow, founder and Artistic Director of Flying Carpet Festival, and educator, celebrated for his exploration of music as a medium for social dialogue and change. Growing up in wartime Iran, his compositions often reflect the interplay of light and darkness, inspired by the poetry of Hafiz, Rumi, and Saadi, as well as global music traditions. Aminikia is trained under esteemed musicians, including Mehran Rouhani and Boris Ivanovic Tishchenko, before earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Over the years, he has also benefited from guidance by luminaries such as Conrad Susa, David Harrington, Aleksandra Vrebalov, John Corigliano, and Oswaldo Golijov. Aminikia’s compositions have been performed across the globe, including in the U.S., Canada, Iran, 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. His recent works include SHAMS, a choral piece inspired by Persian poetry of Rumi, and Four Seasons, a meditation on climate change. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Flying Carpet Festival, the first mobile festival serving children in war-torn areas and Musical Director for Sirkhane Social Circus School, enriching the lives of thousands of children through art and music near the Turkish Syrian border.