Many of the general questions I get asked in interviews are covered in this selection of articles. While I do try to accommodate as many interview requests as possible (especially on work that has not yet been premiered), many of the answers to general questions can be found below.
Please note: If you are a student and are having trouble accessing these articles, please let us know. We would be happy to provide copies for private use only that are not behind paywalls.
Interviews/Features:
Print Media:
This Los Angeles Times feature by Caroline Womack from 2018 about the West Coast premiere of my oratorio This Love Between Us covers my spirituality, a brief personal history, and the overarching themes of the piece, which are pertinent to much of my music.
This article from Musical America by Thomas May from 2017 covers the basis and beginning stages of my Indian/Western classical crossover work, as well as my work between communities.
Here is a beautiful recent profile that was done by Albany Times Union writer James Dalton, about my long relationship with Albany Symphony, and the many works of mine they put on the map. And here’s another recent profile by Jill Pearlman about my work with community, and specifically Community Music Works (and a short mini-doc about my residency).
Also, two lovely profiles from Indian: one around the time of my premiere of This Love Between Us in India, and one more recent profile (both from Serenade Magazine, a Western classical music magazine based in India)
TV/Video interviews:
I was featured on Season 3 of Now Hear This (“New American Voices”) on PBS. You can watch the episode here. Meet my parents and husband, hear some of my work (as well as the amazing work of Sergio Assad) and watch me work with some of my collaborators in real time.
Here is the first ever video interview I did, with the Oral History of American Music at Yale in 2011. It is a baseline for where I was as a masters student, before my professional career began. (OHAM did an extensive archival interview in 2023, which is here.)
Here is an interview I did for Los Angeles Master Chorale about all things choral music.
Podcast/Audio interviews:
Frame of Mind a podcast by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC profiles my work in a beautiful and pithy way.
I was a guest on the podcast Choralosophy, which covers a wide range of topics relating to vocal music, cross cultural dialogue, social movements et al. A few other podcasts that give a good sense of my work and current thinking are Soundweavers (S2E7) and HearTOGETHER, as well as Relevant Tones.
Writing (mine)
Here is a blog post I wrote that was published in Brown Girl magazine about two major promises I made to myself, and the unlikely journeys towards them.
Here is a post I wrote about what it was like to take my oratorio This Love Between Us on tour to India in 2017.
Here is the blog of my entire Fulbright year (2011-12): reena|in|india — much of the origin story of my relationship with India and Hindustani classical music, as well as many of the most formative experiences of my musical life are in this blog.
Resonant Space
Resonant Space is a series of short videos I made for composers and young creatives delving into some of the tough moments in the creative process. It’s probably the most personal I get on camera.
Talks
Here is a playlist of Student Q&As, which addresses many of the questions students ask me. Look in the descriptions below for questions by timestamp.
Here is my TEDxSkidRow talk from 2012, which covers the beginnings of my cross-cultural work, when I had just come back from my Fulbright in India.
My 2020 commencement address for graduates of The Colburn School in Los Angeles covers some of my own important moments and turning points in my life.
Playlists
Here is a playlist of pieces that are deeply influential to me, curated for ICIYL List’n Up, with a description of context for each track. And here is another similar playlist I did for Classical California on KUSC (California’s classical radio station).
Academic Work
My culminating academic work at Yale was a thesis on collaborative methods Western classical composers have used with Hindustani musicians. It includes an exhaustive history of inclusion of Indian elements in Western classical music through the ages, and a look at the work of many composers working today who use various methods and philosophies in their work. Download it here: Download
Lindsay Pope Gregory’s dissertation “Beyond the Binary: the Intersection of Gender and Cross Cultural Identity in Reena Esmail’s Life and Choral Works” is an in-depth look into my music, and the context in which it exists. This is an incredible document that contextualizes my work better than I ever could, and was the winner of the Herford Prize from ACDA in 2021. The dissertation is available here, but you can also contact us if you would like to read it.
Patrick Murray’s dissertation “Composing ‘Community:’ Social practice composition and the performance of community in choral works by Reena Esmail, Julia Wolfe, and David Lang.” (University of Illinois, 2021) includes extensive writing about my work for community and professional choirs. Read more about it here.
Ryan Morris’s upcoming dissertation “Just See” analyzes my bassoon chamber music “through the duality of Hindustani and Western music theory systems to help provide a more authentic performance experience.” For more information, visit Ryan’s website here.
Geetha Somayajula’s article “Reviewing the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s Virtual Performance of Reena Esmail’s TaReKiTa: Setting the New Standard for Indian-inspired Choral Performance” in Choral Journal can be found through JSTOR here.
Books:
My work has been featured in the publication Sonic Identity at the Margins (a series of articles about music and identity edited by Jessie Fillerup and Joanna Love, Visions and Decisions by Bruce Adolphe, and Worship for the Whole People of God (a short discussion of This Love Between Us) by Ruth C. Duck.
**If you have done any academic writing on Reena’s work and would like it to be listed on this site, please contact us and let us know how we can link to this work.
**If you are considering doing any academic work on my music and would like a list of possible dissertation/research topics, please contact us. Reena maintains a list of possible topics that may be suitable for deeper academic inquiry in many fields (music theory and performance, as well as extra-musical and broader cultural topics).
Shastra
I founded and co-direct a small non-profit organization called Shastra, with my longtime collaborator Saili Oak. Here’s mini-doc about our Shastra Summer Collaborative, where we invite Hindustani musicians and Western-trained composers to teach one another their traditions and build new work together.
Deep Cuts
Here’s a vlog series I did detailing a multi-city tour I did in 2017 — if you are wondering what life might be like as a gigging composer, this is the BTS that shows you what my career was like when it first started picking up steam. It is deeply personal, it really delves into the ups and downs of this work, and I still think it holds true as a slice of life of what it’s like to work in this field, especially in those early years.
My favorite thing to teach is Music Theory 101. I really thought I was going to grow up to be a music theory teacher — and even though I’ve taught almost every theory course up through the top levels of the theory core sequence at Yale University, I still have a special love for teaching beginning theory. Here is the height of my dorkiness, from when I was a teacher at Manhattan School of Music Precollege.
