Degree

Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA)

Department

MUSIC

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

Sahba Aminikia is an Iranian-American composer who was underrepresented in his home country. He was born into a family with Baha’i faith only two years after the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979. The consequences of the revolution brought several challenges for him as a musician and a religious minority. Aminikia was deprived of the right to further his education, so he first moved to Russia, and later on, immigrated to the United States where he received his master's degree in composition. The research is focused on the analysis of the two pieces titled One Day; Tehran(2010), and Shab o Meh(Night and Fog) (2013) as well as the history of Aminikia’s life and compositional process in the format of an interview. My analysis of these pieces is motivic, and the tonality is discussed based on the idea of pitch centricity. In this document, I explore the compositional style of Aminikia through the lens of his past experiences within the historical and political events in Iran in order to provide performers a better understanding of his works, so that they can make informed interpretive decisions.

Date

3-6-2019

Committee Chair

Lilleslatten, Espen

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.4815

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