Family Photos is a musical collage of personally significant places from my childhood. The first movement, “At the Carnival,” takes inspiration from the whimsy and spectacle of my neighborhood carnival. “On the Tehran Tower,” the second movement, incorporates elements of Iranian classical music, inspired by my childhood trips to visit family in Tehran. The third and final movement, “In Arcadia,” represents not only my hometown in the suburbs of Los Angeles, but also the Arcadia of Ancient Greek mythology, a heaven on Earth.

Composed for Salastina as part of the Sounds Promising Young Composers Program.

Kevin Kumar, Violin
Maia Jasper White, Violin
Meredith Crawford, Viola
Yoshika Masuda, Cello

Louis Ng, Audio Engineer

Family Photos (2021) for string quartet

Violin: Celeste Pena
Cello: Haley Hedegard
Clarinet: Madelyn Armes
Flute: John Robert Santiago
Piano: Austin Ho

Recording, mixing, and mastering by Sergey Parfenov.

Good Trouble

A Litany In Time Of Plague (2020) for a capella choir

Yoshika Masuda, cello
Sean Tang-Wang, piano

Latif (2022) for cello and piano

Christian Gonzales, violin I 
Alice Townsend, violin II
Angie Zheng, viola
Calvin Kung, cello
Chris Baechtel, double bass

Pluck (2021) (Version for String Quintet)

https://kianravaei.com/works/unstoppa...

Featured Music from Copland House performers: 
Moran Katz, clarinet
Pala Garcia, violin 
Alexis Pia Gerlach, cello 
Margaret Kampmeier, piano 

Commissioned by Copland House as part of CULTIVATE 2022, Copland House's emerging composers' institute, and premiered by the Music from Copland House ensemble on June 12, 2022.

Program Note:
This piece is for the survivors, the underdogs, and those who prevailed when the odds were stacked against them.

https://kianravaei.com/

Unstoppable (2022) for clarinet, violin, cello, & piano

Conductor: Peter Kadeli

Flute: Lilah Senibaldi, Pedro Mujica
Oboe: Olivia Leake, Rachel Burkhalter
Clarinet: Li-Jie Yu, Haley Harrison
Bassoon: Chanelle Junio, Jacob Lomboy
Horn: Terrence Perrier, Jake Buckner, Evelyn Hupka, Anna Dorey
Trumpet: Evan Eldridge, Alex Keiser, Caleb Abshire
Trombone: Scott Rasher, Matt Fowler
Bass Trombone: Justin Carrothers
Tuba: Gage Sippel
Timpani: Kaleb Hascall
Percussion: Drew Neal, Thomas Frost, Jaxson Rives
Harp: Evelyn Theinert
Violin I: Delia Li, Daniel DiMarino, Jisu Youn, Constance Wu, Achille Vocat, Marienn Sanchez, Grace McKenzie, Angela Kapikian
Violin II: Ava Leschyshyn, Anna Cain, Dmitri Volkov, Elizabeth Scarlett, Cameron Zorlu, Naomi Kertonugroho
Viola: Hyrum Kohler, Jacob Davis, Kai Slesarev-Ngami, Alanna Mossell, Rowan Lemaster, Addison Hightower
Cello: Adrian Golay, Joy Chih-Yi Chu, Connor Swain, Hannah Greenstein, Somyong Shin
Double Bass: Javier Hernandez, Jonathon Piccolo, Mingzi Han

Audio Engineer: Garrett Treanor

Recorded on November 12, 2022 at Auer Hall
Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, Bloomington, IN

Feeling New Strength (2021) for orchestra

NOTUS Contemporary Vocal Ensemble; Miggi Angangco, conductor; Justin Carrothers, bass trombone; Aiden Keiser, tuba; Conner Viets, timpano; Drew Neal, percussion

Sahar Khodayari, known to many as Blue Girl (after the color of her favorite soccer team), disguised herself as a man in a failed attempt to enter Iran’s Azadi (Freedom) Stadium and cheer on her favorite players. In Iran, women are prohibited from attending soccer games; she was detained after authorities noticed her disguise. On September 2, 2019, after she found out that she could spend six months in prison for her alleged crime, Sahar Khodayari set herself on fire outside a Tehran courthouse. She would rather die than submit to a regime that denies women freedom and equality.

These lines of Hâfez, Iran’s most revered poet, sound to me like something Blue Girl may have been thinking before she committed her fatal act:

I have in mind, if possible,
To do something that can end sorrow.
بر سر آنم که گر ز دست برآید
دست به کاری زنم که غصه سرآید

Hâfez, Ghazal 228

Blue (2019, rev. 2022) for SATB chorus, bass trombone, tuba, timpano, & percussion

Noah Geller & Tessa Lark, violins; Jonathan Vinocour, viola; Astrid Schween, cello
Recorded July 18, 2023 at Seattle Chamber Music Society, Nordstrom Recital Hall, Seattle, WA

Program Note:

All seven titles which comprise The Little Things come from Emily Dickinson, who never fails to direct our attention toward nature’s easily overlooked wonders. Movements II, III, IV, and VI evoke various animal life, while I and V portray the sun and moon respectively. The order of the movements suggests the cyclic journey of all living things from morning to night and back to a new morning.

In the final movement, we hear the voice of Nature singing Dickinson’s famous lines:

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

The Little Things was co-commissioned by Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, and Seattle Chamber Music Society.

The Little Things (2023) for string quartet

https://kianravaei.com/works/pluck/

Pluck is a joyful exploration of pizzicato inspired by steel-string guitar fingerpicking and Ode to Joy.

Performed December 16, 2023 by Northwest Sinfonietta at Courthouse Square Ballroom, Tacoma Washington.

Pluck (2021) for string orchestra

Performed by Salastina (Benjamin Smolen, flute; Kevin Kumar & Maia Jasper White, violins; Meredith Crawford, viola; Yoshika Masuda, violoncello; HyeJin Kim, piano)

Recorded May 11, 2024 at South Pasadena Public Library, Pasadena, CA
Video by Adan Alonso
Audio by Louis Ng

Program Note:

One Flesh depicts three mythological couples — Loki and Sigyn, the Norse trickster god and goddess; Layla and Majnun, the star-crossed lovers of Persian legend; and Bacchus and Ampelus, the ancient Roman embodiments of ecstatic revelry — represented by flute and viola, cello and piano, and two violins respectively. The duos are summoned with short musical invocations.

Each main movement is dedicated to a different pair of musicians in the ensemble Salastina, my friends and the commissioners of this work. Like the mythological couples, their deep musical relationships exemplify the potential for people to share such a profound connection that they become one in spirit. As George Eliot wrote:

"What greater thing is there for two human souls then to feel that they are joined for life — to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in silent, unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?"

One Flesh (2024) for flute, string quartet, and piano

The Four Seasons of Hamadan: IV. Winter: Yalda & Hannukah

The Four Seasons of Hamadan: II. Summer: Tirgan & Shavuot

The Four Seasons of Hamadan: I. Spring: Nowruz & Purim

The Four Seasons of Hamadan: III. Autumn: Mehregan & Sukkot

Miera Kim, violin; Carey Bostian, cello
Commissioned by Red Cedar Chamber Music

Darvish Khān - Chāhār Mezrābe Māhur (arr. Kian Ravaei) for violin and cello (2025)

https://kianravaei.com/works/morghe-sahar-soprano-flute/

Allison Charney, soprano
Allison Loggins-Hull, alto flute
Peter Seidenberg, cello
Benjamin Loeb, piano

Produced by Kitt Wakeley, Christina Giacona, Patrick Conlon, and Allison Charney

Recorded on the album ALIKE - My Mother's Dream, ℗ 2025 Studio Seven Media, under exclusive license to Hitskope, released on 2025-08-08

Program Note:

One of the most celebrated Iranian ballads, Morghe Sahar (Bird of Dawn) is widely regarded as the unofficial anthem for Iranian freedom. Its lyrics were conceived in response to the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of the early 20th-century, but present-day Iranians sing it as a rallying cry against Iran’s tyrannical government—hoping that one day a bird of dawn will arise from the darkness of the night.

My arrangement is a tribute to the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, and dedicated to the memory of Jina Mahsa Amini. By adding harmony to a traditionally monophonic song, I sought to shroud the melody in a mournful veil, reflecting the sorrow of an oppressed people.

ALIKE - My Mother's Dream

Morghe Sahar (Bird of Dawn) (2025) for soprano, alto flute, cello, and piano

Pillars is a triptych video and live performance piece presented by Future Stages Festival at The Juilliard School’s Center for Creative Technology.

Pillars exists at the intersection of choreography, astrophysics, and music. Inspired by The Pillars of Creation, a stellar nursery in the Eagle Nebula, dance is woven through a landscape of stellar birth and death while exploring female identity and women as pillars in the creation of life.

Marla Phelan’s choreography is enhanced by Director Tim Richardson, Composer Kian Ravaei, Video Artist REINFECTED.ME, Cinematographer Eric Mann, Video Editor Audrey Weiner of Work Editorial, who transform this galactic phenomena into monumental projections and sound score, rendering ecstatic tableaus of allegory and emotion.

Pillars features performances by Mio Ishikawa, Ingrid Kapteyn, and Eleni Loving with lighting Design by Paul Hudson and Costume Design by Marion Talan.

Pillars (2025) for electronic audio, video projection, and 3 dancers

https://kianravaei.com/works/majnun-in-the-wilderness/

Excerpt begins at bar 84.

Northwest Sinfonietta; Mei-Ann Chen, conductor
Recorded May 17, 2025 at Pioneer Park Pavilion, Puyallup, WA

Program Note:

Centuries before Romeo & Juliet, there were the star-crossed lovers of ancient Persian legend: Layla & Majnun. The young poet Majnun, forbidden from marrying Layla, retreated into the wilderness, where he descended into madness pining for his beloved and ultimately perished.

This piece depicts Majnun’s emotions at his most desolate moment, alone in the wilderness and mad with longing. There are five sections, each capturing a different stage of Majnun’s grief.

1. He lamented.
2. He prayed.
3. He wailed.
4. He fantasized.
5. Degh kard.

(The final section could only be captured by using the Persian word degh, which means “to die of grief.”)

Throughout the piece, there is a struggle between the despair motif (three descending notes with a repeated middle note) and the hope motif (three ascending notes with a shorter middle note), representing the competing emotions that are the source of Majnun’s anguish.

Majnun in the Wilderness (2024) for chamber orchestra [EXCERPT]

https://kianravaei.com/works/all-the-sounds-around-her/

0:00 - I. Call and Response (Bars 23–126)
2:26 - II. Counting Game (Bars 1–96)
5:26 - III. Ella (Bars 22–39)

Premiered May 18, 2025 at Hoff-Barthelson Music School Music of Our Time Festival
Westchester Children's Chorus and Hoff-Barthelson Music School String Orchestra; Leandro Gazineo, conductor

Commissioned by Hoff-Barthelson Music School in association with Copland House

Program Note:

All the Sounds Around Her is a personal tribute to Ella Jenkins, whose many albums of children’s songs have brought multicultural understanding to generations of young people. When I started writing this piece, it was to celebrate her 100th birthday, but in the midst of composition she passed away unexpectedly. I decided to embrace the original celebratory intent, allowing her legacy of joy and connection to remain at the heart of the music.

The first movement, which follows an instrumental overture, incorporates Jenkins’s signature call-and-response singing as well as her tradition of writing lyrics that evoke both work songs and children’s tunes. Drawing on my experience as a member of the UCLA Latin Jazz Big Band, I incorporated elements of Afro-Cuban music, one of her major musical influences.

“Counting Game,” the second movement, invokes one of her favorite activities: counting from one to ten in different languages. Each language in this movement is one that Jenkins taught.

The final movement is a meditation on her name, drawing on a refrain from Dr. Ty-Juana Taylor’s children’s book A Life of Song, The Story of Ella Jenkins: “Ella soaked up all the sounds around her.”

All the Sounds Around Her (2024) for SSA chorus and string orchestra [EXCERPTS]

Premiered on August 1, 2019 at the Montecito Music Festival in Riverside, California.

Violin - Luiz Paulo Friere
Piano - Ji Hyun Ryu

“This Land is Your Land” is simultaneously a patriotic hymn for schoolchildren, a rallying cry for immigrants, and, in Woody Guthrie’s original version, a sardonic protest song. But the message remains the same: America belongs to everyone, regardless of race, religion, or nationality.

My variations aim to reflect the reality of America’s situation. African-Americans are incarcerated at disproportionate rates, people from Muslim-majority countries endure travel bans, and Mexican immigrants are forced to cross treacherous deserts for a chance at a livelihood.

Each variation grows more distant from the theme and more violent in character, just as our country has grown distant from the ideals of this song. The piece concludes with a prayer for forgiveness, and we are left wondering, “Whose land is this land?”

Variations on "This Land Is Your Land" (2019) for violin and piano

The story of humankind is a story of exploitation, exploration, and relocation. It is our nature to migrate—but there is nothing natural about the violent conditions which uproot many present-day migrants and refugees. Migration Variations takes human migration as its subject, with the final variation depicting butterfly migration in order to remind us that non-human animals also migrate to escape inhospitable conditions.

The theme as it is presented in the beginning is a series of ever-descending intervals, continually plummeting into despair. When the theme is reprised at the end, the intervals are inverted so that they now reach upward, expressing hope. Over the course of five variations, the melody “migrates” from the initial version of the theme to the final version, mirroring the migration of humans from a place of danger and instability to a place of peace.

Piano 1 - Veola Sun
Piano 2 - Brandon Zhou
Percussion 1 - Robby Good
Percussion 2 - Cash Langi

Kian Ravaei

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