Heaven’s Garden – Դրախտի Պարտէզ
A Song Cycle by Naveed Perkins

Naveed Perkins is a young, self-taught pianist and composer. He was born and grew up in San Diego, California where he’d attended school his entire life. Since he was young, he’d always had an ear for music. When he explored music on his own, he developed a much deeper appreciation and intuition that can be seen, heard, and felt in his own compositions. Over his high school career, he attended both Indiana University Piano Academy for Piano Performance and the Curtis Institute of Music Young Artist Summer Program for Composition. He began studying with Professor Victor Labenske at Point Loma Nazarene University during his junior year of high school where he began to refine his skills and compose more intuitive music. He is currently studying with Richard Danielpour and Ian Krouse at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music where he continues to refine his skills by finding new ways to convey the beauty of music through his own works.

Naveed is not only an avid composer, but poet as well. He has written a book of short poems titled “Letters To My Unconscious Mind,” as well as the libretto for his upcoming oratorio. As a composer of mixed descent, he continues to find new avenues to express his rich heritage. For the past two years, he has been the assistant conductor of the Iranshahr Orchestra, an Iranian Orchestra under the direction of Dr. Shahab Paranj. These opportunities, paired with his pursuit of cultural integration through his music has led him to meld personal poetry with compelling narratives that tell stories about fundamental aspects of our lives. 

As a first-year graduate student at UCLA, his future prospects all deal with a greater integration of narratives within his community of colleagues, faculty, and those in the greater LA area and beyond. His most recent project, ‘Heaven’s Garden’, is a song cycle in both Armenian and English to be performed on April 15th, 2026 with the Iranshahr Orchestra at UCLA. Upcoming performances of his work include poems of Hafiz put to music with the UCLA Chamber Singers, and another choral work slated for performance in Carnegie Hall December 2027. He deeply looks forward to further storytelling through his music, art, and poetry, and he cannot wait to share the wonders of music with those around him.

Sofia Dell’Agostino is a second-year undergraduate at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, double-majoring in voice performance and music composition. She studies voice with Vladimir Chernov and has studied composition with Ian Krouse, Richard Danielpour, and Naveed Perkins.

At UCLA, Sofia has performed in opera and scenes productions conducted by Rakefet Hak and Neal Stulberg and directed by Peter Kazaras and James Darrah, including music by Henry Purcell, Richard Danielpour, and Kurt Weill. Sofia sang the role of Miles in Opera UCLA’s production of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw and also premiered the role of Young Wolfgang in the new pop opera Nannerl by Mia Ruhman. Her piano suite premiered at the 2025 UCLA Composers Spring Concert. Recently, she performed with orchestra in the 20th Annual All Star Concert (2026). She also performed as a finalist of the Opera Buffs Artists of the Future competition (2026). In addition to the premiere of the English and Armenian song cycle titled Heaven’s Garden by Naveed Perkins (2026), Sofia will soon premiere an original voice and piano piece on the 2026 UCLA Undergraduate Composers Spring Concert.

A native of San Francisco, Sofia attended the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, studying vocal music with Michael Desnoyers (2019-2023) and serving as Student Conductor during her senior year. She attended the High School Composition Intensive and Vocal/Choral Intensive (Boston Conservatory at Berklee) and the International Vocal Artists Academy (Payerbach, Austria), and has been a member of the San Francisco Opera Scouts and UCLA Chamber Singers. At Inspire Music, a private music studio in the Bay Area, she studied voice with Victor Cervantes and Sergio Gonzalez, and piano with Jeffrey Huspek.

Leland Alexander is a baritone currently studying voice at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music under the guidance of Juliana Gondek. He began his formal vocal training at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and has received numerous distinctions, including First Prize in the CS Music Vocal Competition, Second Prize in the Hal Leonard Vocal Competition, and recognition as a two-time YoungArts winner in Classical Voice. Leland has appeared in operatic performances both domestically and internationally, portraying roles such as Don Giovanni (Don Giovanni), Aeneas (Dido and Aeneas), the Count Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Fernando (Rodrigo), and Musiklehrer (Ariadne auf Naxos). His concert repertoire includes solo appearances in Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Fauré’s Requiem in D minor, and Puccini’s Messa di Gloria. He originated the role of General Laturb in the fully staged world premiere of Richard Danielpour’s opera The Grand Hotel Tartarus and is scheduled to perform the role of Oreste in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride in the spring. Leland has been mentored by distinguished artists including Sherrill Milnes, Vladimir Chernov, Dolora Zajick, Lucas Meachem, and Nicole Cabell.

Shahab Paranj is an Iranian composer, instrumentalist, and educator. He is considered a generational pioneer, with a bold compositional style that integrates Persian and Western composition techniques. Paranj holds degrees in music composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (BM), the Manhattan School of Music (MM), and the University of California, Los Angeles (Ph.D.).

Paranj’s recent commissions include works for ensembles including the Russian String Orchestra, Intersection Contemporary Music Ensemble, Long Beach Opera, Aleron Trio, San Francisco New Music Ensemble and Sopraduo. Paranj is also the founder and artistic director of “du vert à l’infini” a contemporary music festival in the Franche Comte region in France. He is also the founder and director of The Iranshahr Orchestra. His original score for the movie “Dressage,” was the winner of the 2018 feature film in the Berlin Film Festival.

Known as a tombak virtuoso, Paranj has performed, recorded, and collaborated with numerous highly respected musicians worldwide. He was a member of the Iran National TV & Radio Symphony Orchestra as a cellist for eight years, and for fourteen years as served as a percussionist for the Shams Ensemble.

Paranj’s research on the complex rhythm of Persian Āvāzi style music was selected to be presented at AMS-SEM-SMT 2023 joint annual meeting in New Orleans, and he has received formal recognition from the Mehr Humanitarian Society (2010) and The City and County of San Francisco (2011) for his contribution to introducing Persian music to the world.