Ramin Amir Arjomand is an Iranian American composer, pianist, improviser, conductor, and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. His music has been commissioned and/or performed by Speculum Musicae, So Percussion Ensemble, the New York Virtuoso Singers, the Cassatt Quartet, TAK Ensemble, the Columbia Collegium Musicum, and numerous independent ensembles and soloists in venues throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
As a pianist, Arjomand has performed widely as a soloist and in ensembles presenting his own works. His approach cultivates spontaneity and thrives on questioning the need for pre-conceived formal structures in composition and performance. His recent work focuses on total improvisation. His electroacoustic music, based in a Logic digital editing environment, works primarily with recorded improvised sound material.
While a doctoral fellow at Columbia University, Arjomand was the director and conductor of the University's early music choir, Collegium Musicum. During this time he began to research the polyphonic technique of 15th-century Flemish composers, whose music became the main focus of his concert repertoire with the Collegium. His doctoral dissertation essay, "On Contrapuntal Practice", is based largely on his research into this music. His interest in vocal music and in speech as music has led to a wide variety of concert, electroacoustic and music-theater works that experiment with the human voice in different ways.
Arjomand has worked extensively as a composer, pianist, lecturer, and musical adviser with the Barnard College Department of Dance. His approach to dance theater composition emphasizes contrapuntal relationships between sound and movement. He has worked to develop collaborative models in which composers and choreographers can trust one another to work freely and independently toward a common goal. Arjomand completed his doctoral work in Music Composition at Columbia University in 2006. A highly sought-after teacher, he has taught Theory, Aural Comprehension, and Composition.