Description
Aram Akhavan is a hardware design engineer at Qualcomm, lifelong violinist, and the Founding Director of the Villa Musica Summer Orchestra. He received his B.S.E. in Electrical Engineering from Arizona State University, and his M.S. in Electrical Engineering from UC San Diego. While in school, he continued studying the violin, playing with the ASU Symphony Orchestra and the La Jolla Symphony. He is an active participant in San Diego’s chamber music scene.
Aram founded VMSO in 2013, when he asked 12 of his friends to join him to perform a casual chamber music concert for a small audience at St. Peter’s. Aram conducted the group for 5 years as it grew to a full symphony orchestra boasting nearly 100 members, bringing free yearly concerts to the public. The highlights of his tenure included conducting the Star Wars Suite with a lightsaber, and Holst’s The Planets for an audience of over 500 people. In 2018, Aram stepped down from his role as Conductor, allowing the group to fulfill Villa Musica’s mission in another way: providing a one-of-a-kind educational experience for a student conductor. He now serves as the ensemble’s Assistant Concertmaster and Founding Director.
In his free time, Aram enjoys hiking San Diego and lifting weights with his wife, contributing to open source software, and tinkering with electronic gadgetry. He is very excited to serve Villa Musica in a broader scope as a member of its Board of Directors.
