Bio:
Born in post-revolutionary wartime in Iran, Aminikia was raised during a newly configured democracy that evolved from mass-executions, war, and violence into a society that—through the use of internet and technology—challenges the current political and social infrastructure. Highly influenced by the poetry of Hafiz, Rumi, and Saadi, as well as traditional, classical and jazz music and the albums of Pink Floyd, Beatles, and Queen, Aminikia cites music to be an immersive, transcendent, yet visceral human experience. He is curious about the duality in existence, and musically explores subjects that confront the pursuit of enlightenment amid the darkness. A conscientious soul, due to his upbringing, he attempts at finding a common understanding of communication and dialogue through music. And, as a result, throughout his career, he has composed pieces that express the inevitability and triumph of hope.
Today, Aminikia collaborates with other artists to create and compose meaningful work. He has been trained in musical composition under Iranian pianists Nikan Milani, Safa Shahidi, and perhaps most influenced by work with his first classical teacher, Mehran Rouhani, a post-graduate of Royal Academy of Music and a former student of Sir Michael Tippett. He later relocated to Russia where he studied at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory under Boris Ivanovich Tishchenko—a post-graduate student of Dimitri Shostakovich. He received his Bachelor of Music and his Master of Music with honors from San Francisco Conservatory of Music under David Garner and David Conte where he was the proud recipient of Phyllis Wattis Foundation scholarship. He has also received individual life and music lessons from David Harrington, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Conrad Susa, Luciano Chessa , John Corigliano, and Oswaldo Golijov as well.
Recently, the San Francisco Chronicle's has referred to Aminikia as “an artist singularly equipped to provide a soundtrack to these unsettling times.” His musical pieces have 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. Aminikia’s compositions have been commissioned by theatre troops, contemporary classical ensembles, film scores, Persian traditional music groups as well as 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" (2010) commissioned by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Kronos Performing Arts Association, was described by Financial Times as “An experience not to be easily forgotten”. And similarly, his widely known “Tar o Pood” (Warp and Weft)—commissioned by Nasrin Marzban for Kronos Quartet—was the second place recipient of the American Prize 2015 in composition, a professional chamber music category. Aminikia has recently been the artist-in-residence at Kronos Festival 2017, an annual festival held by legendary Kronos Quartet 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 recently wrote the music for "Sea Prayer" a VR experience by Guardian based on a story by acclaimed author, Khalid Hosseini which was performed by Kronos Quartet and British multi-instrumentalist, David Coulter.
Sahba is the founder and the artistic director of Flying Carpet Children Music Festival which occurs yearly in the city of Mardin, Turkey, near the border of Syria serving more than 5000 children suffered from the trauma of war of Syrian, Iraqi, Kurdish and Turkish origin.
Quotes, Notes & Etc.
The dichotomy between light and dark, to me, is clear; yet, through music, I aim to find the moment where the former emerges. Growing in a newly born democracy amid war and in the aftermath of a revolution, I, along with many in my generation, experienced a tumultuous childhood. We witnessed the evolution of a grassroots movement: from mass-executions, war, and violence into a society where internet and social media continues to alter the political and social infrastructure. I was born and raised in Tehran, where the traditions of the past and the most progressive influences of the region are constantly in a state of struggle. Living in such a conflict, I needed to define my own identity, dismissing a wide variety of the choices that were already made for me and my peers.
In the Iran of 1980s, music was completely banned from media and live events. It was only permissible in public in the format of revolutionary chants and Quran recitations. Later on, in the late 1980s, Persian traditional music and western classical music were added to this list. Moreover. women have always been banned from singing in public, starting with the Islamic revolution and with the downfall of the Shah in 1979. Later, from the very early days that I started living outside of Iran, I realized that being brought up in such circumstances had given me a hopeful outlook.
Life in Tehran taught me to appreciate hardship and beauty at the same time, and this is something that, due to heavy media propaganda, is mainly obscured in Western minds. I was brought up with the poetry of Hafiz, Rumi, and Saadi, and with Persian classical music, but was also largely exposed to the music of Pink Floyd, Beatles, Queen, and various jazz musicians. This conflict between the morals of a theocracy and Western cultural imports also exists in my mind, and I see it as a life process towards finding a common ground for communication and dialogue in my music.
I respect music as a medium of communication, enabling me to share my experiences with audiences of different backgrounds. Recognizing hope and beauty in the most horrific human experiences, I often aim to include people of different backgrounds in a process that sympathetically understands what our fellow humans endure. The result has the potential to further develop a particular sensitivity in human beings which enables us to immerse in our fellow humans’ griefs and joys, considering them our own. Saadi Shirazi, the 13th-century Persian poet, depicts this mind-set marvelously:
"Human beings are members of a whole
In creation of one essence and soul.
If one member is afflicted with pain
Other members uneasy will remain.
If you have no sympathy for human pain
The name of human you cannot retain.”
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).