836M Announces Its First Composer In Residence, Sahba Aminikia, January 15 – June 1
The Iranian-born and San Francisco-based composer develops his latest project, THE LANGUAGE OF THE BIRDS, a multimedia collaboration.
836M has announced its first composer in residence, Sahba Aminikia, who will spend the first five months of 2024 developing a new work based on the 12th-century Persian poem, The Language of the Birds.
Commissioned by 836M, collaborators on the project include librettist Zara Houshmand, the San Francisco Girls Chorus, the Living Earth Show, multimedia artist John Sanborn, as well as a guest artist, the Persian singer Marjan Vahdat. The world premiere will take place May 31 – June 1 at 836M, and reservations with free admission will become available in late winter.
“We are proud to welcome Sahba Aminikia as our first composer in residence,” said Céline Ricci, 836M programming director. “This initiative underscores our firm commitment to multidisciplinary art, to work in progress and to the commissioning of new works of art within the San Francisco Bay Area. With his residency, we inaugurate a new year of programming around a theme we're calling Beyond Frontiers, spotlighting artists and thinkers whose work transcends physical, cultural, intellectual or disciplinary boundaries to produce new ideas and experiences.”
A public reception for Aminikia's residency will take place on February 15 at 6:30 p.m. Subsequent events include open rehearsals, work-in-progress showings, and a celebration of the Persian new year featuring a poetry reading and a jam session with over two dozen musicians.
Aminikia is an Iranian-born composer, pianist and educator based in San Francisco. His work has been widely performed around the world – from SFJAZZ to Carnegie Hall – with commissions by ensembles including the Kronos Quartet, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, San Francisco Girls Chorus, Akron Symphony, Symphony Parnassus, International Contemporary Ensemble and the Living Earth Show, among many others. Aminikia is also the founder and artistic director of Flying Carpet Festival, a mobile music festival for children living in conflict zones.
The Language of Birds marks Aminikia's third collaboration with Houshmand whose contributions include translating the medieval poem that serves as source material as well as writing original lines of verse. The libretto will be sung in both Farsi and English, and Houshmand will also perform the role of one of the lead characters, a bird named Hoopoe.
Over his career, Aminikia has worked with the renowned San Francisco Girls Chorus and the Living Earth Show on many occasions. For this project, between 30 and 40 young singers will play a variety of birds, and the “ferociously creative” duo of Travis Andrews and Andy Meyerson will perform on guitar and percussion.
John Sanborn will design the visual program for the work. Sanborn, who is based in the Bay Area, is widely considered one of the leading American video and digital media artists of his generation. His work spans the fields of television, video installation, video games, music videos and much more.
Finally, The Language of the Birds will include guest artist Marjan Vahdat, an award-winning Iranian singer and musician, currently based in Northern California. Vahdat's third solo album, Our Garden is Alone, was released last year to great fanfare, topping the transglobal world music chart.
“My motivation for taking up this work is very personal,” said Aminikia. “The whole point of the poem, as I see it, is to emphasize the unity of mankind, though it also shows the obstacles that prevent people from talking to one another, that prevent dialogue. At a time of intense public polarization and political conflict, the message of The Language of the Birds is not lost on me. Its wisdom is timeless and timely.”
Following Aminikia's residency, 836M is planning a series of musical events throughout the summer, as well as mural paintings, a pop-up residency and exhibition of the works of American painter Edward Mills, and finally closing out the year will be a four-month residency of South Korean conceptual artist Yaloo. Currently a professor in the Department of Experimental Animation at the California Institute of Arts, Yaloo uses digital media and technology to create interactive works of art. More details about her residency and a range of other programs will follow next year. For more information visit 836m.org.
836M is a nonprofit arts organization with a gallery space in San Francisco. Our mission is to emphasize the creative process and ignite people's hearts and minds through live artistic and cultural experiences. We create programming that provokes strong reactions, lively debate, deep curiosity, and discovery, and through doing so, we hope to open minds and raise people's awareness. Our programming celebrates bringing people together to share varying perspectives. We host gallery exhibitions, artist residencies, documentary screenings, an ephemeral mural program, a concert series, and innovative partnerships with other arts and cultural organizations in the Bay Area. 836M is one of the partner organizations of NextWorld, a global organization combining investments and philanthropic activities under one brand to manage capital to benefit future generations.
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