Reena Esmail (b. 1983)
About the Composer
Reena Esmail is an Indian-American composer whose music brings the traditions of Hindustani and Western classical music into dialogue. Her work spans orchestral, chamber, choral, and solo music, often creating musical spaces in which performers from different traditions can work together. Her compositions have been commissioned by ensembles including the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Seattle Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony, and have appeared on several Grammy-nominated recordings.
Esmail studied composition at the Juilliard School and Yale School of Music, where she ultimately earned her doctorate. A Fulbright-Nehru grant took her to India in 2011–12 to study Hindustani classical music with Gaurav Mazumdar; her Hindustani teachers have also included Lakshmi Shankar and Saili Oak. Her doctoral thesis, Finding Common Ground: Uniting Practices in Hindustani and Western Art Musicians, explored both the possibilities and challenges of collaboration between musicians grounded in these different traditions.
Collaboration and connection have remained central to Esmail’s career. She served as the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s Swan Family Artist in Residence from 2020–25 and as composer-in-residence with the Seattle Symphony in 2020–21, and has held residencies with organizations including the Tanglewood Music Center, Spoleto Festival, and Marlboro Music Festival. Across these varied projects, Esmail approaches the meeting of musical traditions not simply as a matter of combining styles, but as an opportunity to create meaningful dialogue among musicians, traditions, and communities.
About the Piece
Reena Esmail’s Crystal Preludes brings together twelve pieces written over five years (2020-2025), reflecting a period of experimentation in her writing for piano. Some develop material from earlier works, others began as sketches for future compositions, while still others are self-contained musical ideas. A pianist herself, Esmail describes the piano repertoire as something she knows “in my bones,” and the collection draws inspiration both from the Western prelude tradition and from Hindustani classical music. The title also carries a personal meaning: the first three preludes in the collection were written for Esmail’s longtime friend, pianist Crystal Rivette.
Prelude No. 5 is based in Raag Bihag, a raag Esmail associates with “warm intimacy.” The piece explores two simultaneous layers of melody drawn from different musical traditions. A rapidly moving inner layer is shaped in a distinctly Hindustani manner, with irregular groupings reminiscent of a taan—a quick, agile improvisational phrase. Above it floats a slower melody whose texture Esmail connects to the Western chorale-prelude tradition.
Esmail also identifies Chopin’s Prelude in G major, Op. 28, No. 3 as a point of departure for the piece, particularly in its texture and character. But from that starting point, as she puts it, the music “ventures into completely different worlds.” The resulting prelude is less a juxtaposition of Hindustani and Western traditions than a musical space in which elements of both coexist naturally, each shaping how the other is heard.
Explore Further
- Reena Esmail (official website)
- Composing Across Cultures – Reena Esmail (HearTOGETHER podcast)
Sheet Music
The sheet music is available for purchase from the composer’s website.
Myriad Voices 