Hotel Elefant is a contemporary music ensemble dedicated to the works of innovative, living composers. Founded by composers Leaha Maria Villarreal and Mary Kouyoumdjian, Hotel Elefant brings an awareness of today’s music to the general public through commissions, performances, and moderated discussions between composers, performers, and audiences. Committed to modern sounds and sonic explorations, this “audacious and unafraid” (New Music Box) ensemble highlights living composers who are blurring lines, pushing boundaries, and fostering creativity. With a flexible roster of over twenty musicians, Time Out New York hails Hotel Elefant as “one of New York’s fastest rising new-music outfits.”

“As strongly influenced by his native country’s idiom yet also undeniably informed by classical training and the world of academic new music—a healthy balance.“—SF Classical Voice
 
Born in 1981 in Tehran, Iran, Sahba Aminikia studied music composition in Russia at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory under Boris Ivanovich Tishchenko, a post-graduate student of Dimitri Shostakovich. In his homeland, Aminikia studied under renowned Iranian pianists Nikan Milani, Safa Shahidi and Gagik Babayan. He was influenced by work with his first teacher and renown composer Dr. Mehran Rouhani, a post-graduate of Royal Academy of Music & former student of Sir Michael Tippett.
 
He received his B.M. and M.M. with honors from San Francisco Conservatory of Music under Dan Becker, David Garner, & David Conte where he was the proud recipient of Phyllis Wattis Foundation scholarship. He has also received lessons from Conrad Susa, Richard Danielpour, John Corigliano, Oswaldo Golijov, and John Adams.
 
He is the recipient of commissions from theatre troops, contemporary classical ensembles, film scores, Persian traditional music groups to jazz bands including Kronos Quartet, Symphony Parnassus, San Francisco Conservatory of Music New Music Ensemble, Mobius Trio, Delphi Trio and Living Earth Show and has collaborated with artists such as Rashin Fahandej & Taraneh Hemami.
 
His third string quartet, A Threnody for Those Who Remain, commissioned by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts & Kronos Performing Arts Association was described by Financial Times as “an experience not to be easily forgotten.”
 
Recent projects include a second commission for Kronos Quartet: Tar o Pood (Warp and Weft), based on actual recordings of Persian carpet-weavers work songs. Aminikia is the 2014 Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival’s Fellow Artist Composer, through which his most recent piece Shabo Meh (Night and Fog), was commissioned & premiered by the San Francisco-based Delphi Trio.

Mary Kouyoumdjian is a composer with projects ranging from concert works to multimedia collaborations and film scores. As a first generation Armenian-American and coming from a family directly affected by the Lebanese Civil War and Armenian Genocide, she uses a sonic pallet that draws on her heritage, interest in folk music, and background in experimental composition to progressively blend the old with the new. She has received commissions from the Kronos Quartet, Carnegie Hall, American Composers Forum/JFund, REDSHIFT, Nouveau Classical Project, Friction Quartet, Experiments in Opera, and Ensemble Oktoplus. She recently orchestrated on The Place Beyond the Pines.
 
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Matt Marks’ work has been called “staggeringly creative” by The New York Times and “bright, catchy and continually turn[ing] Broadway clichés on their heads in surprising ways.” by the Los Angeles Times. His The Little Death: Vol. 1 was one of Time Out New York’s Top Ten Classical albums of 2010 and had one of Huffington Post’s Top Ten Alternative Art Songs of the Decade. Recent projects include his Strip Mall for the L.A. Philharmonic, Bluetooth Islands for the Brooklyn Philharmonic, a remix for Meredith Monk’s latest album, and a live realization of The Dirty Projectors’ album The Getty Address.
 
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Composer Leaha Maria Villarreal brings a contemporary focus to classical music. With works described as “visceral” (Lucid Culture) and “austere” (New Music Box), her output includes music for dance, film, opera, and the concert hall. She has worked with organizations and ensembles such as Wild Rumpus, W4, Ear Heart Music, Boston New Music Initiative, BODYART, The Box is Empty, and PUBLIQuartet. Past composition teachers include Pulitzer Prize winner Roger Reynolds, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, and Chinary Ung. Villarreal holds a B.A. from the University of California, San Diego and studied at New York University with Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon.