Reena Esmail

Reena Esmail (born 11 February 1983) is an Indian-American music composer of Indian and Western classical music. Esmail has been commissioned to compose pieces for ensembles including Amherst College Choir and Orchestra, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Conspirare, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Composer Andrew Norman selected her work for violin Darshan for a 2020 feature in The New York Times, calling it “familiar and fresh, intimate and epic, grounded and aloft.” Life Esmail has been the composer-in-residence with the Seattle Symphony, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Tanglewood Music Center, Spoleto Festival, and Marlboro Music Festival. Notable ensembles that have commissioned work from Esmail have included the Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Kronos Quartet, Imani Winds, Viano Quartet, Baltimore Symphony, Richmond Symphony, Albany Symphony, Chicago Sinfonietta, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, San Francisco Girls Choir, Conspirare, Brooklyn Rider, and Yale Institute of Sacred Music. She is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Shastra, a non-profit organization that connects Indian musical tradition with the West. Style Esmail only began to become a “truly syncretic compose