Query to element criteria
I think you want to have the same result as with an ElementCriteriaModel, instead of getting an ElementCriteriaModel.

What you want to do is mimic craft()-&gt;elements-&gt;findElements(), and put your own $query in it. This will more or less put the results in their models. You can just copy this function and replace the second line (where $query is defined) with your logics.

You could also do something like Conference_SessionModel::populateModels($queryResult), but by the way Craft joins the content table in findElements this would be rather slow, as it would make a new query for every content field.

What would be really nice is if you could specify $query in findElements, too bad Craft doesn't support this (yet?)