A Q&A with Composer in Residence, Reena Esmail

By Bekah Sandy

Reena Esmail is on a mission to serve as a conduit. So, it only makes sense that her music crackles with energy and movement and connection. The 38-year-old composer has spent her career thus far bridging worlds. As an Indian American trained in both Western and Indian classical music, she’s forged a path that marries these traditions. Her music intertwines the sorts of works commonplace at her alma maters of Julliard and Yale with the Hindustani songs one would encounter in South Asia.

Now, the Los Angeles-based musician is bringing her thoughtful and intersectional approach to her current role as the Seattle Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence. Already, Esmail wowed audiences with the premiere of her piece RE|Member, which served as the featured work at the Symphony’s Opening Night for the 2021/2022 season and was also the first reunion of the orchestra and its audiences since the pandemic’s start. Here’s what she had to say about how she views her role, what she hopes for the orchestral world’s future, her favorite parts of her tenure thus far, and what she’s most looking forward to for the rest of the season:

Q: You have many hats you could potentially wear, from composer to musician to Eastern to Western to classical to Hindustani. How do you like to identify or categorize yourself?

A: To a Western classical audience, I’m more likely to be seen as a conservatory-trained composer who works with Indian classical musicians. And then on the Indian side, obviously, it’s the exact opposite. There, I’m seen more for having this deep training in Indian classical music, as well as also writing for symphonies and choirs and chamber ensembles. So, I find that how I introduce myself is based on who I’m talking to, but, typically, I would introduce myself as a composer.

In addition to occupying so many various spaces, you also are a woman of color in a field that has historically been and still can be quite white and quite male. Does this impact how you approach your work or how you view its impact?

It’s interesting, because if you look at me through the lens as a Western classical composer, then, yes, I am in a field where not many people look like me. But if you look at me through an Indian classical lens, then I am absolutely right in the center of what you’d expect for doing that kind of music. So, for me, really, I always feel like some combination of insider and outsider. On the one hand, I attended and trained at conservatories with names people would recognize, and that makes me a total insider. On the other hand, I work with a culture very different than most people understand, so then I’m an outsider. I think being able to have a dual lens is important, because not necessarily identifying as a majority but also not necessarily identifying as a minority allows me to see both sides of things as I approach my work. At this point in my life, I think I focus less on what my biological identity is and think more about the work that I do. I seek to be a conduit that brings musical cultures into connection with one another.

Can you give an example of how you’re able to serve as a conduit for intercultural connection?

I think a good example is the upcoming [14th annual Celebrate Asia] event [on March 20, 2022] with the premiere of my Violin Concerto featuring Kala Ramnath. In this case, it’s bringing Hindustani classical and Western classical musicians into direct contact with one another, because I am able to speak to both of those worlds. And on a broader level, it’s also about bringing people who are from very different demographics within the same city — whether they are from different socioeconomic backgrounds or neighborhoods in the city or are transplants to the area or have lived there for a long time. For me, I think more about how I can be that space where that intersection and connection happens. How can I and my music create that place?

Do you think that conversations about identity distract or add to the musical experience?

I think that they are just different conversations. And sometimes they intersect, and sometimes they don’t. I’ve always felt that music and art should be a place where everyone really feels that they have a voice and can put an idea forward. I think to the extent that we focus only on how specific demographics interact with things, that can be problematic, but if we’re really opening it up and saying, ‘Okay, what is the opposite of this demographic? Are they being seen? Are they being heard?...,” if we’re willing to go that extra mile and ask those questions — I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

What do you consider to be the goal or mission of your music? What do you hope it achieves? Or is the creation process reward enough?

One of the greatest things that’s been happening recently is that many young people from various South Asian backgrounds start studying classical music and find my music and have been like, “Oh! We really want to play a western classical instrument. We want to play the violin or sing in a choir. We just thought that our culture at home with our parents is really different than the culture of the music that we do at school,” and they’re suddenly realizing that those two things don’t have to be different from one another. They are realizing there is a space to explore both cultures at the same time. And that touches a special place in my heart, as I think about the South Asian kid I was growing up in the United States. I didn’t experience that space, so I’m trying to create it for the next generation. Beyond that, I hope that my music connects with you, whether you’ve never heard Hindustani music before or if you’ve been listening to them your entire life or if you’ve never been to an orchestral concert before or if you grew up in the concert hall. Regardless of who you are, hopefully there’s something in my music that you recognize, and hopefully there’s also something where you can use the thing you recognize as a window into the thing you don’t. So, again, it goes back to my hopes to serve as a musical conduit.

What do you hope to see in the future for the classical musical arena, specifically in the orchestral world?

That’s a really interesting question, because I feel like the easiest answer is that I hope to see more diversity. That’s what kind of everybody hopes to see, I think? But one of the things I love most about the Seattle Symphony specifically is that it’s been embracing different formats, like having chamber music or having smaller ensembles and larger ensembles, etc. These varying formats allows these incredible, amazing musicians to play music that isn’t only orchestral music. That is a thing I’d love to see more of, because when you’re able to open up a little bit and not be entrenched in only one very specific way that an orchestra can function — especially if you’re willing to have a variety of kinds of rehearsal schedules, — then you’re opening yourself up to allow more people to share their music through the orchestral medium.

One of the ways that Seattle Symphony likes to expand its orchestral format is by combining new technology with new spaces, such as its Octave 9 facility, where your music will be performed by Kala later this year.

These are all just tools, right? And every tool has its own mode of potential expression. I think that to the extent that we have a variety of formats, we can have just that many more creative options with which different people can create new things, and that’s really wonderful. I think these tools can allow artists and mediums to feel like the tools are available to move things forward. As for Kala and Octave 9, specifically, I think that it’s exciting that we’re allowed to have this more intimate setting with our audience, especially as Kala is playing something familiar in an unfamiliar way. Kala is going to play the same violin that Western violinists would play, but in her hands, it looks and sounds completely different, and I can imagine that people would want a closer look and want to engage more closely.

How would you describe your role as the Seattle Symphony’s Composer in Residence? What does that entail? How have you approached that position, and how do you hope to occupy that space?

It’s been a little difficult in these COVID years to know exactly how to approach the role. Of course, that has had an impact. In fact, my first interaction with the orchestra was back in September at the first rehearsal the ensemble had together. I was also there at the Opening Gala, which was the first time the supporters were together in the room again with the orchestra (since the pandemic began). You don’t often get to see such seminal moments as someone coming from outside the organization, and I’ve never seen an orchestra more happy to be on stage with one another than that first rehearsal. Imagine getting to write into that space, writing for musicians who are hearing each other’s sounds again for the first time in so long. So, that was how my residency started. Now, in these times, I’m really thinking more broadly about the Seattle area in general, and how there is such a large South Asian population here, and a lot of them don’t necessarily go to the Symphony, as Indian and Western classical music have been so separate for so long. So, what I’ve been thinking about broadly for my role now is seeing how many different ways I can be a conduit between people and how many different ways I can unite concepts across cultures.

What has been one of your favorite projects in your role?

I’ve really enjoyed being able to work deeply with the Education and Community Engagement department. One of the initiatives we collaborated on was a project where I was able to teach third through fifth graders how to compose a melody. We produced an instructional booklet and videos. What’s amazing to me is that when I was a young composer just starting out at conservatory, melody was not really a thing that we did, you know? You were kind of looked down on a little bit if you did melodies. But I’ve always believed in melody, and I believed in it to the point where I was willing to engage a totally other musical art form — Indian classical music, which is wholly melodic — in order to get the amount of depth I wanted in melody. So, to be asked by a Western classical institution to talk about melody and how to bring melody to young children, it felt to me like I was really going back to my own roots.