Composing Across Cultures - Reena Esmail

What does “home” sound like to you? For composer Reena Esmail, this was a question of invention, not recollection. Today, she is celebrated for the seamless interplay between her Western and Hindustani influences in her music, but her journey through craft, culture, and creativity was winding and often treacherous. 

In this episode of HearTOGETHER, composer Reena Esmail joins host Tori Marchiony for a heartfelt conversation about growing up between two cultures and two religions, the toxicity of competition, and the importance of constantly challenging her own worldview. 

Music in this episode:

• ESMAIL, Piano Trio - Suzana Bartal - piano, Peter Myers - cello, Vijay Gupta - violin
• ESMAIL, This Love Between Us: Yale Schola Cantorum and Juilliard415, David Hill, conductor -- with Rabindra Goswami, sitar and Ramu Pandit, tabla
• ESMAIL, Take What You Need  - Street Symphony and Street Symphony Chamber Singers -- Shelley Fox, soprano
• ESMAIL, Interglow: Salastina Music Society - Maia Jasper White - violin  Kevin Kumar - violin Meredith Crawford - viola   Yoshika Masuda - cello HyeJin Kim - piano  Benjamin Smolen - flute
• ESMAIL, Zeher - Brooklyn Rider - Johnny Gandelsman, violin, Colin Jacobsen, violin, Nicholas Cords, viola, Michael Nicolas, cello

Thanks to 
Noel Dior & Tim German, Editorial Council 
Teng Chen, Audio Engineer 

The Philadelphia Orchestra’s HearTOGETHER series is generously supported by lead corporate sponsor Accordant Advisors. Additional major support has been provided by the Otto Haas Charitable Trust.

Transcript

TORI MARCHIONY (Voiceover): Hello! And welcome back to the HearTOGETHER Podcast from The Philadelphia Orchestra. I’m your host, Tori Marchiony. And this is a space to hear from the artists and activists working to create a more equitable future- inside and outside the concert hall. 

You just heard an excerpt of movement 2 of Piano Trio, by our guest today, Reena Esmail, a composer known for drawing on both Western and Hindustani classical music traditions. Wherever she goes, Reena works to create equitable musical spaces that bring communities together. That might sound “high-falutin” but she’s really pulling it off. In addition to her high profile commissions from the likes of Seattle Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and Imani Winds, she’s also the artistic director of Shastra, a non-profit that connects the music traditions of India and the West.  

Reena is a Southern-California-raised, Juilliard then Yale-educated, Indian-American composer. * She was brought up in a Christian and Muslim household, and says she feels most comfortable with people who not only share her multi-cultural perspective, but who habitually challenge her worldview. 

REENA ESMAIL: A lot of my closest friends are usually from other places and I just 

somehow feel at home with people who * have to traverse between cultures. And so *  

almost all of my friends who are not American, um, will say, you know, when I came to

America,* I, it scared me how polite people were because I felt like no one was telling me the truth and everyone would be like, oh, this is fine. This is great. And I just wouldn't

know if something was good or not. *  And I, you know, growing up in America, it took me being friends with people who were from other countries to really see it. But now I can't unsee it. 

TORI MARCHIONY (Voiceover): For many of us, this kind of revelation might be painful, even offensive. Not so for Reena Esmail. On the contrary, she’s a big fan of inquiry so deep it could become destabilizing. And sure, her upbringing may have primed her for this kind of thinking, but even beyond that, she says, she’s just always “thought like a composer”. 

REENA ESMAIL: It’s a certain way of thinking where you're not necessarily taking what's on the written page as, you know, completely just finished. You're always thinking, what can I do to change it or alter it, or how could it have gone differently, you know? Yeah. 

TORI MARCHIONY: Is that a perspective that extends to other parts of your life as well?

REENA ESMAIL:

Yeah, no, I'm a systems thinker. I think so in the other parts of my life, it's like, I am so obsessed with like spreadsheets or I'm obsessed with, you know, uh, uh, systems and ways to do things. And so I'm always thinking, okay, how do I optimize my life to make it better, make it work more smoothly, or to get a certain result, you know? And so I do, I sometimes get lost in my own systems thinking and, you know, spend more time on the system than I do following the system sometimes to the point where it's like a little like Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation. And I'm definitely she's my, my guiding light, I think, or at least at least we're soulmates in a certain way.

TORI MARCHIONY

Mm, great show. Okay. So, going into your upbringing a little bit. The first thing that stands out obviously is the religious “mismatch”, so to speak of your, your parents. What was their approach to that dynamic when you were growing up? 

REENA ESMAIL: You know, it's so interesting. I'm so glad you're asking this because you know, my parents have always been really open about their religion and their own, um, uh, relationship with their religion and obviously to be married to one another and, you know, they've been married for what, over 35 years. So, um, they, they really, um, like were always clear about how they felt about their religion * and they certainly didn't feel that their religion was exclusive if anyone else's religion. *  But I also think it's really interesting because have they grown up in India? *  Um, and have they been just in that country of origin,*  number one, they never would have gotten married to each other, * but number two, you know, when you're in a country that's completely different from you, you begin to see your similarities. * And so they met in like, pre-Disney world Orlando, you know, and they were like two Indian people who were there. And so they started to see the similarities in their own cultures and their own religions, even though they were from, you know, very different places. And so I think they always kind of tried to take the best of both worlds with their religions. And they were always trying to find ways that things connected to one another. But then it's also really funny because on, in my extended family, we have people who really are only from a single religious, uh, um, upbringing and everyone is from that religion. And so I would start to see the difference in my parents' thinking, and then the thinking of people who, who really maybe weren't, um, as open to having other religions in their family. 

TORI MARCHIONY: Did it… not, did it ever come to blows, but were there ever, was there ever tension like at a family barbecue or something like that?

REENA ESMAIL: It was kind of based on who was visiting us was kind of what the, I could see the shift in values, you know, because even, you know, my grandparents lived with us and they were like devoutly Muslim. And, um, they, I mean, of course, because they live with my mother and me, they never really, uh, had any issues, but you know, when their family would come from India, * they would just be really confused at half of our family. And because it went both ways and because,  * you know, there's a certain kind of, um, uh, feeling that you want to be right about your beliefs. Um, and especially if you're not, um, if there aren't other people around who are constantly showing you, uh, the opposite side of that, um, then it's easy to kind of get caught up that your beliefs are the only right beliefs. And I don't think that it comes from a bad place. I just think it comes from maybe not having enough engagement with, um, a different tradition.

TORI MARCHIONY: How did that affect your relationship with your own spirituality over time?

REENA ESMAIL: You know, it started out when I, that when I was a child, I just thought that every person had their own religion. I didn't realize that these were ma major world religions. And so I thought, okay, well, there are these two people who've raised me. They both seem to have different things going on, so I just need to develop my own thing. And so when I was very young, I definitely was a deeply spiritual person. And I kind of made up my own little rituals and I would do write my own little hymns and they were kind of like vaguely Catholic, but also definitely, you know, grew up with my grandparents printing in the house five times a day. So, you know, you, you kind of take all of that and incorporate it. And in a way I think, um, I was really picking up on the fact that * truly, even though there are organized world religions, you know, each person's spirituality is individual and is really up to them. So I don't think I was that far off the mark. *

MUSIC- THIS LOVE BETWEEN US

(TORI MARCHIONY VOICEOVER): That was an excerpt of the seventh and final movement from This Love Between Us, Reena’s 2016 breakthrough piece. The composition explores how the themes of unity, brotherhood and kindness are expressed in seven major religious traditions of India- * Buddhism, Sikhism, Christianity, * Zoro-astrianism, * Hinduism, Jainism and Islam. * In many ways This Love Between Us was the culmination of Reena’s lived and scholarly experiences up to that point- drawing on her Fulbright year spent in India, her master’s and doctorate from Yale, as well as her formative years as a Juilliard undergrad… where she may not have felt fully prepared…

REENA ESMAIL: * I just remember entering Juilliard and it just hitting me like, you know, drinking from a fire hose where everything was just coming at me all at the same time. And I felt like I had to be perfect at things I didn't even understand. And so, um, definitely it took me a while to acclimatize and, um, it was, uh, it was a rough experience. Like I will say overall, it was rough for me. Um, because I just didn't feel like I had the support that I needed to help me process everything that I was, I was trying to go through so quickly. Um, I mean, I went to Julliard as an 18 year old who knew nothing about Juilliard, except that it was a place where really good musicians went to school. And so I just knew I wanted to go there. So I was absolutely that kid with stars in my eyes. It was like, “oh, I'm going to Hogwarts!” or whatever. Like, that's what I thought it would be. And of course, I mean, it's, it was a really tough environment. And it was an environment where, especially even because at the time that I went there, it was definitely a place where, you know, you, you wrote a tonal melody and that had to be like, ironic.

Like it couldn't actually be like, “oh, I just want to write this melody.” Um, and so I really believed in melody and I still believe in melody. Um, but at that point I didn't have the, maybe even the self confidence in my own work to say, “Hey, no, this is really how I want to sound. Even though I know that it's not really acceptable”. So I felt like I fought a lot with myself when I was at Julliard. Of like, “is this dominant style of composing the style that I really want to compose in?” And if so, or if not, you know, “do I want to be a composer?” So I left Julliard, honestly, feeling like I really didn't know if I could or wanted to uh continue in the field. And I took four years off and I, you know, I taught at Manhattan School of Music, uh, pre college, which was incredible for me because I actually got to * go back to a lot of these basics that I was encountering for the first time at, uh, at Julliard and really teach them and get to know them better. 

So I got a lot of, um, uh, developed a lot of grounding there. * That was the time when I met the, um, the first Indian classical musicians that I really got to know and started developing those threads. And so having those years where * really no one cared about my work, if I stopped composing the next day, no one would care. Um, and so w at that time, when no one cares, you have to ask yourself, “well, do I care? And if I do care, why do I care?” And so, by the time I knew I wanted to go back, I knew that I cared. I knew that I wanted more.

TORI MARCHIONY: There seems to be a shift that happens for creators, where you get through craft to real artistry and that the question kind of shifts from, “can I do this?” to, “what am I going to do?”

REENA ESMAIL: Yeah.

TORI MARCHIONY: And I'm wondering, yeah. What was your experience of sort of coming into that? 

REENA ESMAIL: If I have to pinpoint the place where I started to really shift in my thinking, it was when I started studying Indian classical music. Um, and it was because, you know, again, to go back to what we were talking about before about, um, you know, seeing things from multiple perspectives, * sometimes you can get in a situation where you feel that people always know better than you about something, because they just had more years to study it, or they just have a broader knowledge of it. * But when you're working in multiple places, you can see that the same people who might know everything about Wagner, might have like, never heard of a major Hindustani classical artist before and vice versa. And so you're always aware that people's knowledge, um, might seem vast and endless, but it is really in a specific direction. And so, * um,  that really helped me see a side of people that I had never really seen before. You know, and I it's like I did my doctorate and obviously the professors at Yale where I studied *were, um, really, really knowledgeable in their field. But then the minute I would, um, talk about a different kind of music, they just didn't have that same knowledge and that's not bad, but it does humanize them. * And so it just makes me think, you know, it's not my job to know everything about everything, but it is my job to pick the thing that I want to be really good at, *and then be super excellent at it and really inquire and really go deep. * And so just having, um, the ability to know that, especially in my work between, uh, sectors, whether it's between, uh, different musical cultures, whether it's between different demographics. Um, I know that sometimes I can see the space between, um, where I might not have as much knowledge of one side or the other. I know that I can, uh, I have the knowledge of how to, um, bring those sides together.  

TORI MARCHIONY: That's really interesting. And it's making me think of some critic at one point was talking about one of your pieces and saying, she “she's equally at home in the Eastern and Western traditions”. And I was like, I wonder if she feels equally at home or if she's creating a third home?

REENA ESMAIL: You know, that's, that, that is really true. Now that you're saying it, I think you're right. Because, you know, to a certain extent, I do have a very broad knowledge of Western classical music, right? Like I have a doctorate in it, so clearly I've studied and I've, you know, I, I really have a sense of it * in a way that I don't in Hindustani music because I didn't grow up studying Hindustani music. I have about a decade of work and that's not nothing, but it's also not the same as someone who's been singing since they were three years old. Um, but you know, in a certain way, there were things that never quite made sense to me about Western classical music. I never necessarily felt like an insider there. I always felt like I was hearing things that I didn't know what I was hearing, but they were somehow different than, um, what I felt that other people were wanted me to hear. And when I started studying Hindustani classical music, I realized that a lot of those things were natural traits of that style of music. And so it's true because I do feel like there's a point where the styles come together and maybe similar to my uh, religious background, I feel like I'm able to take, uh, just parts of, uh, the, the, each of style that I love and make them into something that feels like my own original language. And then, * you know, all bets are off. Like if I'm working between cultures, I can say like, “Hey, you know what, I, I really want to take this specific part of it and bring it into my world. And I don't necessarily need to take everything from it with me.” 

TORI MARCHIONY: On the one hand, my question is about the sort of strategy of branding yourself, and then balancing that with your genuine felt desire to explore this dichotomy of your upbringing. Did you have to grapple with that at all as?

REENA ESMAIL: Yeah. I mean, I grappled with my relationship to Indian culture a lot, because I grew up really around mostly non-Indian people. There are mostly white and, you know, a few people of different races. * Um, but even, you know, my, my Indian community, my parents’ friends, community lived so far away that I wouldn't say that I saw them regularly. * So as far as I was concerned, I was just basically, I think if I really had to go back and think about it, I would have thought of myself as like a white person who was just weird. Like I, like I was just failing at being white, um, for a long time. And it really wasn't until I was in my early twenties that I started to get a sense of the fact that, 

oh, I'm from this other culture that, that is so, * uh, vast and beautiful.” Um, and so *  for a long time, especially when I was young as a composer, * um, people would look at me and there just, weren't very many people who were South Asian who were doing what I was doing.  * And, you know, again, just the first question out of their mouth would be like, “oh, you're Indian. Do you do things with Indian music?”  *  And I mean, truth be told, I was just embarrassed that I didn't know enough about Indian classical music. And  * also felt like this onus if like, “oh, because I'm from this place suddenly I need to know all these things that other people don't need to know,” you know, am I not measuring up? And so it took me a long time to kind of grapple with that. But I knew also that, um, India had a really rich musical tradition and I wasn't about to just start randomly bastardizing the tradition without really knowing stuff about it. So it took me a long time and it actually took me * going to India, um, you know, a number of times, but primarily through my Fulbright * and spending a year deeply, deeply engaging with the musical tradition in the context of the culture. 

Because I mean, it's one thing to kind of study the music. And it's another thing to just * be an Indian in India, studying Indian classical music, uh, without going through the, the Western lens. And so, * um, that was the first thing that gave me a sense of really deep belonging. And not only, um, belonging in the musical sense, but belonging in the sense of, you know, you're just on the Delhi Metro, and you're looking at everyone and they look like you, you know, you're not weird or you're not exotic. You're just a person who is there with other people. *  And that was the only time in my life I've ever experienced that. Um, so *  it feels like, um, I was able to kind of, uh, uh, make it my own in a way that I wouldn't have, if I had always been studying it only in America. * And I think that was when that was what gave me the confidence to really feel like I understood intuitively a lot of things about Indian classical culture and what then allowed me to kind of, uh, really, uh, dive in. And then also what allowed me to challenge musicians from both sides, because I know that I might've had kind of a * hands-off type respect for Indian classical musicians if I, myself, hadn't studied it so deeply, but now I know the places they can be pushed to the places where 

I need to, um, you know, respect the boundary. I just have a sense of it because I know it more. * And so I think there's a lot, I mean, a lot of it just boils down to the depth of your understanding about something as, as how far you're able to push. And so, you know, I always think like when we want to push something a little bit more, * we just have to understand it a little bit better. 

MUSIC- performed by X and her husband, Vijay Gupta. The pair met at Street Symphony…

(TORI MARCHIONY VOICEOVER): That was an excerpt of Take What You Need, one of Reena’s many works for community voices. Take What You Need was commissioned by Street Symphony, a Los Angeles-based non-profit that connects houseless and incarcerated people with workshops, events and one-one-one musical instruction. Street Symphony also connected Reena with her husband, the violinist and Macarthur Genius, Vijay Gupta who founded the organization in 2011.  

REENA ESMAIL: The environment that we're put in as um classical musicians has so much to do with how we interact with one another and I've realized over and over again, that sometimes I meet someone in an environment that's inherently set up for our competition with one another. And because of that, * you feel like you're not able to connect with someone and you're the closer you are or the closer you do to what they do. *  Um, the more you're incentivized to compete with them, you know, in classical music has so many of these places like, you know, big competitions, big prizes.*  And so it feels like you're somehow, um, having to antagonize your closest peers. And, um, so I mean, I actually think that the reason why, um, Vijiay and I actually ended up being able to connect so deeply is because we were in an environment *  that, that he created, but in an environment that allowed us to really show our best selves to one another. Um, and so even though I'm not, you know, formally associated with the organization anymore, I feel like  *  it gave me so much in terms of connecting to my own humanity, um, because when you're performing with and for, and creating music with people who, um, don't have the same agreements that you do, you know, they're not like, “okay, we're going to sit quietly in a concert hall and we're going to clap at the appropriate places.”  * And we're going to say exactly the right things about this music.  *  Once those agreements go away, this really deep, interesting engagement starts where people will be more honest with you. People will tell you what's in their souls  * and it's such a direct engagement that it really pulls you in.  * And so I think, um, you know, in the way that I, I love working with different communities and, and bringing them into music, making spaces with one another,  *  I think I learned a lot at that, just from the people I worked with at Street Symphony, both the musicians and the community members.

TORI MARCHIONY:  Wow. And I'm also really interested in the class aspects there because that's something that feels to me like this elephant in the room, especially with like, classical music and quote-unquote community engagement that it feels like this huge gulph.

REENA ESMAIL: Yeah. I mean, it's, it was really huge. And I think I was, um, I was kind of in a unique position because I was at the time when I started working with street symphony, to be totally honest, I was at like the needier of my life. I was at a point where I had like the past life that had, had kind of broken down. I had split up with, uh, you know, my, my old partner. And I basically was just living with my parents in LA trying to finish writing my oratorio so that I could actually then go and, you know, figure out what the rest of my life was going to be. So * when I was connecting with these incredible community members,*  you know, there was a part of me that felt like, “oh gosh, if my life had gone, the few decisions had gone a different way. I might have been in exactly their situation.” * And it's really, I think sometimes we don't want to admit how close we actually are to being in an unstable situation, especially as musicians. I mean, like one day we could be in the house of a very wealthy, wonderful donor who's, you know, paid for an entire thing. And the next thing we can be going back to our apartment where we're trying to like, you know, just barely have the water on and stuff, you know? So, I mean, yeah, there is, there is so much around the class and I think it's based in fear, you know, fear of not wanting to, to wanting to feel like your world is a little bit more stable than it actually is. 

And we just don't know, our world is not a stable place. So many things can change. As we've seen during this time, you know, many people who really thought they had stable jobs don't and people's, um, uh, * situations have changed so rapidly. *Um, and I think just being able to embrace that idea, that we are all in changing situations, we're all in situations where we just need some support, um, looking at it through that, that lens. And then also looking at it through the lens of, you know, there are not people who have resources and people who don't, everyone has a gift to offer. Everyone is close to something. *And the people on skid row are very close to, you know, in a sense, their own stories, they're willing to be more open and vulnerable because that's what they have. They have their life story. *Um, and, and somehow, you know, just being with people who have that gift to give, who have the gift of engagement, who * maybe have the gift of time and, uh, attention, *um, is something that is really monumental. 

You know, to be honest, the thing that's, that's so hard to me and I don't, I think COVID has made it even more obvious. It is. I've been thinking a lot about this phrase of like, “you just had to be there,” you know, you had to be there * and, um, you know, in a certain way, anything we do in music, it's a completely different thing When you're talking with someone who was in the room with you when that event happened and when you're not. * And so obviously, you know, in regular music settings, like concert halls and stuff, you know, the people come, they pay for the tickets, they listen to the concert * and they get to enjoy the best of what's happening. *Um, in situations like, uh, you know, when people, when musicians are going to engage people in other circumstances,* the people who are paying for it are sometimes not the people who get to actually enjoy that interaction.* And so, because that incentive is misaligned, it's really hard to say to someone, “Hey, I had a great meeting with someone else. We need you to pay for this.” Right? It doesn't always make sense. And so *that creates all these really, um, these, these just weird things that I don't know what the answer is, uh, to them, *but I've noticed that that is sometimes just, um, yeah, you can just create a really weird alignment of incentives.

TORI MARCHIONY: And that's where I think that patronizing feeling can come in, like, there's sort of a good, vague intention over here, and then an action. And then are we actually building the connection?

REENA ESMAIL: You know, to continue that thought, it's like, if, you know, we always say like, we want to advocate for this thing. We want to advocate for these people. * Are we really sure that the people that we're advocating for want us to advocate for them in that way? Or have we just decided that that's the thing that we want to do? * Because I mean, on the other hand, in this era, I can't tell you how many times * I've gotten calls or emails from, you know, someone who's in college or high school and wants to just do a really good thing. And will kind of, you know, uh, word and email to me, like, you know, “we know that you're a woman of color. We want to empower you.” And I'm like, “okay, you know, I'm fine. Like I'm doing my thing. I'm, I'm super happy. 

Like if you liked my music and want to play it awesome, like I'm excited to engage with you.” But I mean, I don't know that I need you to advocate for me. I'm not like, asking for that. And so it sometimes has a patronizing quality that I think is maybe coming from a place of * young people, trying to understand how they can be helpful in the world. * And so, again, it's not, it doesn't come from a mean place, but * it definitely is a little bit like, “oh gosh.*   And so I wonder, of course, turning it around. It's like, it's not like I don't probably don't do the same thing to other people. Like when do I decide that I'm going to advocate for a thing and when does that feel patronizing to someone else? So I always try to think about that. 

TORI MARCHIONY:  Yeah. And ultimately just asking people what they need is always a good place to start. 

REENA ESMAIL: Exactly. Well, and I mean, and this is why I feel like the root of everything is relationship because, and this is one thing that I, I feel again, as a disconnect in the creative world, is that, okay when I'm sitting down to write a piece, I don't say like, “okay, let me read, uh, a listicle about the top 10 things not to write for bassoon and then write my piece based on that”. Right? And that's not engagement. That's like, you know, uh, disaster aversion. And I feel like sometimes we're using this disaster aversion, um, mechanism towards, uh, other people. And sometimes I feel like I'm on the receiving end of that, where people are so afraid to ask me questions or engage with me because they might offend me or something. * And I mean, I do want people to ask me deep questions. Speaker 2: (28:01)

If they don't understand something, I do really want them to say something because that's how * maybe I can see their perspective. Um, but I just feel like this idea of, we need to have a preface before we just engage with people and say the wrong thing. I understand where it comes from, but I don't know that, um, I, I wish that we were just able to be more curious without such huge repercussions. You know, we talk a lot about wanting diversity, but true diversity involves serious discomfort and it involves * discomfort on all parts. And if it's not involving discomfort, then it really isn't doing the job that it needs to do. Um, if it moves beyond cosmetic and into diversity of perspective, then you're actually getting something where everyone's perspective has to grow. 

TORI MARCHIONY: I would love to know how much time and energy you at this point spend evaluating what other people are expecting from you and how they're reading you versus how much time and energy you spent evaluating that as you were like when you were younger and as you were coming up?

REENA ESMAIL: So I think I'm almost a little bit on the other side of the bell curve, right? 

When I was younger, * I really didn't know what people expected of me. And especially because when at that era, you know, we weren't even talking about people of different races, like even being a woman, composer was a really big deal at that point. * And so, um, I was aware that I was studying with teachers, none of whom saw themselves in me. And they, there were other students who they just clearly were like, “oh, this is the person who is going to kind of grow up to be the next me * and Rena is not that person.” And so I think because of that, I was really like,” okay, I don't, it doesn't really matter what these people think of me because I I'm really not even in the ballpark of being supported by them at all.

 Um, then I think maybe in the last, I would say probably up to a few years ago for about five years, I was when people started really engaging my work, that I was really concerned about what they thought. And I was also really concerned because I was building, um, this, this bridge between these two cultures and starting to see all the misunderstandings that would exist between these cultures. * I mean, from just simple things like, okay, like when people, when a Indian musician is sitting on the floor next to a conductor's foot where they are not supposed to be wearing shoes and like, things like that, that could just, you know, devolve into something really, uh, uh, upsetting for either party, um, things that were that practical to things that were just much more, um, assumptions that people make about one another and how to navigate that.  

So I was not only thinking for myself, but thinking for everyone who was involved in the process, how would they perceive one another? Um, but I don't know these days, I feel like, um, maybe it's that I feel like I'm surrounded by so many people who are also,  * um, deeply engaged in asking these deep questions that it can allow me to just sit at my piano and think like, okay, what sounds do I like, 

(TORI MARCHIONY VOICEOVER): That was an excerpt of interglow, a work for string quartet, flute, piano and community voices composed by Reena Esmail and commissioned by Salastina Music Society in 2020. 

TORI MARCHIONY: I'm curious what success looks and or feels like to you now at this stage of your career. 

REENA ESMAIL: sometimes I will get these blind emails from people who I don't know, who just have heard my piece somewhere. I've been like, * “Hey, you know, I really needed this. Like, um, there was a point where I had released an album, uh, with Brooklyn rider. And, um, there there's a piece on the bits about healing  *  and, um, someone had listened to it and it was, uh, uh, essential worker who started listening to this piece and was like, you know, this, I really feel like I'm able to be calm while listening to this work while I'm taking care of people who are dying of COVID. And I thought, “wow, like the fact that my work has reached this person, the fact that they are hearing it, and the fact that they're able to kind of close that loop and, and respond and let me know that, um, I mean, that, those are the moments that you live for” 

Um, you know, I feel that also with, um, there's this whole group of, uh, uh, south Asian kids who are kind of coming up in the world who are studying both Indian and Western classical music. And a lot of them will reach out to me and say,” oh, I never thought that those worlds would be, I'd be able to do them in one piece. I always thought that I had to keep them completely separate.” So, you know, that feels really wonderful to me. Um, I really just try to think, you know, I want to have a positive impact on the world. I want to, you know, just, just bring warmth and love and engagement and, you know, beauty into the world. And so to the extent that I can do that, that, that feels, um, that feels meaningful for people. Um, that makes me really happy. 

TORI MARCHIONY: Wow. Well, so far so good. My friend. What are you working on now? Do you have any upcoming projects that you can share a little bit about?

REENA ESMAIL: Yeah, I mean, I've been working on, I just, um, um, I'm in the process of finishing a solo violin piece for Simone Porter who is wonderful young violinist, * And then after that, um, I'm going to start on, it's actually also as a violin concerto, but it's for Indian classical violinists, Kala Ramnath, Um, and so she is just like a superstar of Indian classical music. And *  I mean, truth be told she was someone who, when I started studying Indian classical music, the way that I even processed, what it meant to play a string instrument in an Indian way was through watching her videos and kind of working with her. And so * basically now getting to write a concerto for her is like, I mean, it's just beyond my wildest dreams. So, um, that will be premiering, uh, with Seattle Symphony in uhm March. And I'm going to, I'm going to start working on it very soon. 

TORI MARCHIONY: Amazing. Yeah. Talk about an “I made it” moment!

REENA ESMAIL: And there are, and it's funny because you never know when those moments are going to hit where you're like, my ten-year-old self is screaming inside of me right now. Like I never, it's not even that it was my dream. It was just a thing that just, I never could even let myself think was possible. So * it is amazing, especially to work with people who are incredibly famous and then to find out that they're actually super wonderful, nice people who really want to engage you deeply. * That is like a, such a satisfying thing. And that's certainly true of, of Kala.

TORI MARCHIONY (Voiceover): Thank you so much for tuning in to the HearTOGETHER Podcast from The Philadelphia Orchestra. I’m Tori Marchiony, and we’ll be back next month with more conversations about music, social justice and all the life in between. 

If you liked this episode, please remember to subscribe, rate, review, comment and SHARE with your friends! Big thanks to our editorial council, Noel Dior and Tim German, as well as sound engineer Teng Chen and of course our guest, Reena Esmail. 

To play us out, please enjoy this clip of one essential worker’s favorite Reena Esmail track, Zeher from Brooklyn Rider’s 2020 album, Healing Modes.