Reena Esmail
This Brazilian cultural matrix positions Reena Esmail globally...
Curation
CURATION
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from this page:
by Augmented Matrix
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
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Name:
Reena Esmail
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City/Place:
Los Angeles, California
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Country:
United States
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Hometown:
Chicago, Illinois
Life & Work
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Bio:
Esmail is the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s 2020-2023 Swan Family Artist in Residence, and Seattle Symphony’s 2020-21 Composer-in-Residence. Previously, she was named a 2019 United States Artist Fellow in Music, and the 2019 Grand Prize Winner of the S & R Foundation’s Washington Award. Esmail was also a 2017-18 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow. She was the 2012 Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (and subsequent publication of a work by C.F. Peters)
Esmail holds degrees in composition from The Juilliard School (BM’05) and the Yale School of Music (MM’11, MMA’14, DMA’18). Her primary teachers have included Susan Botti, Aaron Jay Kernis, Christopher Theofanidis and Martin Bresnick, Christopher Rouse and Samuel Adler. She received a Fulbright-Nehru grant to study Hindustani music in India. Her Hindustani music teachers include Srimati Lakshmi Shankar and Gaurav Mazundar, and she currently studies and collaborates with Saili Oak. Her doctoral thesis, entitled Finding Common Ground: Uniting Practices in Hindustani and Western Art Musicians explores the methods and challenges of the collaborative process between Hindustani musicians and Western composers.
Esmail was Composer-in-Residence for Street Symphony (2016-18) and is currently an Artistic Director of Shastra, a non-profit organization that promotes cross-cultural music connecting music traditions of India and the West.
She currently resides in Los Angeles, California.
More
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Quotes, Notes & Etc.
“She is so at home in the different styles. I’m more excited about Reena and her compositional voice than just about anybody that I’ve worked with in recent years. She’s obviously fiercely brilliant and a gifted musician, but what makes her music special is the fact that she’s able to channel this incredible empathy and complex understanding of the human experience into music that’s crystal clear, beautiful, thought-provoking and unlike anything I’ve ever heard before.”
-Grant Gershon, as told to Catherine Womack, Los Angeles Times
“Reena Esmail’s This love between us ‘Prayers for unity’ is the most substantial work. Reflecting her Indian-American heritage, the seven movements each set a text from one of the religions practised in India, with corresponding variety of musical intent, from mesmerising ululations, via hints of Baroque choruses to driving exuberant exclamations. The only accompanied work, colours are added not only by Juilliard 415, but also the twang of sitar and shimmying tabla rhythms, the naturalness and integrity of Esmail’s music ensuring this is no mere touristic fusion.”
-Christopher Dingle, BBC Music Magazine
“Especially compelling was “The Light Is the Same” by the Indian-American composer Reena Esmail. She took as her inspiration lines of the 13th-century Sufi poet Rumi: “Religions are many/ But God is one/ The lamps may be different/ But the light is the same.” With highly ornamented lines reminiscent of Hindustani singing, Esmail wove textures that seemed like the musical equivalent of translucent silk, rustling in a gentle breeze.”
-Patrick Rucker, The Washington Post
“Reena Esmail conceived a beautiful amalgamation in “My Sister’s Voice” with the Hindustani singer Saili Oak and the always impressive soprano Fitz Gibbon. The work’s marvelous lyricism, its superb string writing and equally perfect balances allowed…lush tones to blend and soar. The audience jumped to its feet, cheering and applauding loudly.”
-Geraldine Freedman, The Daily Gazette
“There weren’t just bits of the “Messiah” but also an engaging new piece by the young Street Symphony composer-in-residence, Reena Esmail, “Take What You Need,” that sounded like Sondheim at his most lyric and without the cynicism.”
-Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times
“Esmail has scored the work for Western instruments, and parts of the work evoke a 1950s-ish orchestral sound, complete with lugubrious cello melodies and brisk, vital ensemble writing. But she also draws on melodic and rhythmic elements of Hindustani music, which she approximates with glissandi, pizzicato, and other techniques. Much of the work’s charm lies in the ease with which she moves between these styles, particularly in the work’s final bars, which are thoroughly Western but for a brief, final raga allusion.”
-Allan Kozinn, San Francisco Classical Voice
“Esmail’s music is often angular, a little like Shostakovich. The soloist plays lyrical melodies over swirling sounds from the orchestra, or interjects its comments between big, jagged, dramatic blocks of sound. Partway into the second and last movement, a staccato theme builds up in the orchestra as the violin darts around it. It then breaks up into fragments that form the basis for most of the rest of the movement. This theme is so catchy that I heard someone whistling it during intermission. When’s the last time that happened at a modern music concert?”
-David Bratman, San Mateo Daily Journal
“Reena Esmail’s Hindustani-inspired Clarinet Concerto with the estimable clarinetist Shankar Tucker, was a floral summer night with exotic perfumes coupled with a free-flowing fast movement of scales passed around from soloist to orchestra.”
-Geraldine Freedman, The Daily Gazette
“Grounding the new commissions, Reena Esmail’s arrangement of N. Rajam’s Dadra in Raga Bhairavi, offered a semiclassical Hindustani work with an underwater quality that had Harrington’s violin sounding like the humming of a woman far in the distance.”
-Lou Fancher, San Francisco Classical Voice
“At that point the character changed to become a vivacious dance with complicated rhythms — a South Asian take on John Adams, perhaps — before the work concluded with a return of the opening drone-based rootedness. I would happily hear the piece again.”
-James M. Keller, Santa Fe New Mexican
“More compelling, Reena Esmail’s spookily evocative arrangement of the celebrated Hindustani violinist N. Rajam’s Dadra in Raga Bhairavi created an extraordinary seven minutes. To a background track of an oud playing a sustained drone, Harrington’s solo violin’s dark tone relished the twists and turns of the colorful slow-ish raga theme. Yang accompanied with a reasonable facsimile of the sound of a tabla, playing on the body and strings of her cello. (I’m definitely adding this piece to my iTunes rotation.)”
-Harvey Steiman, Seen and Heard International
“Thankfully, classical music in the 21st century has progressed beyond stolid, middle-aged white guys in tuxes walking out on a stage, performing, then walking off again to restrained applause. “Perhaps,” composer Reena Esmail’s collaboration with filmmaker Heather McCalden, employed the most familiar approach, the bucolic lyricism of Esmail’s music serving as an atmospheric soundtrack to McCalden’s moody seaside meditation.”
-Eric Skelly, Houston Chronicle
“There are moments of agitated, fast gestures that suddenly turn on a dime, transforming into soft and elegant lines. Hard hitting brass chords are followed by moments of guilt cried forth by oboe and clarinet solos. One of the more poignant moments is when all of the women in the orchestra stop playing and, one by one, reenter singing in order of the year they entered the orchestra.”
-Jarrett Goodchild, I Care If You Listen
“Teen Murti heads after another direction, drawing on composer Reena Esmail’s Indian heritage and interest in Hindustani music. Alternating three principal ideas, it’s a score that mixes moments shimmering beauty and potent athleticism with grace and intelligence.”
-Jonathan Blumhofer, The Arts Fuse
“Esmail’s dulcet lines hung song-like over McCalden’s melancholy scenes of cascading waves and grey beaches, infused with life by Segev’s rapt playing.”
-Christian Kriegeskotte, I Care If You Listen
“The use of the western string quartet was a brilliant stroke – traditional Indian instruments can make this music sound so exotic that it can be hard for the uninitiated to absorb. Coming through the familiar lens of violins, viola and cello however, it is clearer to westerners how subtle and sophisticated this music can be.”
-Paul Muller, Sequenza 21
“The haunting mystery of its opening passages evolved into pulsing rhythms from opposing sections of the strings. The exciting composition moved on to take many unexpected twists and turns, somber one moment, and full of surprising tempo changes the next.”
-David Dow Bentley III, The People’s Critic
“Reena Esmail’s “Gul-e-dodi” (Dark Flower; video of another performance of the composition below) from her Anjuman Songs paid stunning tribute to Nadia Anjuman’s illustrious career, cut short when the poet was murdered by her husband in 2005.”
-Lucy Gellman, New Haven Independent
“Sometimes she introduced propulsive, polymetric vamps to accompany the tabla and sitar. In other sections, the Baroque strings provided a transparent wash of ethereal sustained chords as a background for the singers, or for solo moments by the winds.”
-Robert Mealy, Strings Magazine
Clips (more may be added)
There are certain countries, the names of which fire the popular imagination. Brazil is one of them; an amalgam of primitive and sophisticated, jungle and elegance, luscious jazz harmonics — there’s no other place like it in the world. And while Rio de Janeiro, or its fame anyway, tends toward the sophisticated end of the spectrum, Bahia bends toward the atavistic…
It’s like a trick of the mind’s light (I suppose), but standing on beach or escarpment in Salvador and looking out across the Baía de Todos os Santos to the great Recôncavo, and mindful of what happened there (and here; the Bahian Recôncavo was final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place throughout the entirety of mankind’s existence on this planet, and in the past it extended into what is now urban Salvador), one must be led to the inevitable conclusion that one is in a place unique to history, and to the present:
Brazil absorbed over ten times the number of enslaved Africans taken to the United States of America, and is a repository of African deities (and their music) now largely forgotten in their lands of origin.
Brazil was a refuge (of sorts) for Sephardim fleeing an Inquisition which followed them across the Atlantic (that unofficial symbol of Brazil’s national music — the pandeiro — was almost certainly brought to Brazil by these people).
Across the parched savannas of the interior of Brazil’s culturally fecund nordeste/northeast (where wizard Hermeto Pascoal was born in Lagoa da Canoa — Lagoon of the Canoe — and raised in Olho d’Águia — Eye of the Eagle), much of Brazil’s aboriginal population was absorbed into a caboclo/quilombola culture punctuated by the Star of David.
Three cultures — from three continents — running for their lives, their confluence forming an unprecedented fourth. Pandeirista on the roof.
That's where this Matrix begins:
Wolfram MathWorld
The idea is simple, powerful, and egalitarian: To propagate for them, the Matrix must propagate for all. Most in the world are within six degrees of us. The concept of a "small world" network (see Wolfram above) applies here, placing artists from the Recôncavo and the sertão, from Salvador... from Brooklyn, Berlin and Mombassa... musicians, writers, filmmakers... clicks (recommendations) away from their peers all over the planet.
This Integrated Global Creative Economy (we invented the concept) uncoils from Brazil's sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix... expanding like the canopy of a rainforest tree rooted in Bahia, branches spreading to embrace the entire world...
Recent Visitors Map
Great culture is great power.
And in a small world great things are possible.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
I opened the shop in Salvador, Bahia in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for magnificent Brazilian musicians.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix, then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC (I've lived here in Brazil for 32 years now) I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Across the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
For a complete list of everybody inside, tap TOTAL below:
TOTAL
Ex Terra Brasilis
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Matt Garrison
RÁDIO MATRIX