About Reena

Reena Esmail’s music weaves together the traditions of Hindustani and Western classical music, drawing musicians from many perspectives into shared creative spaces.

Esmail divides her attention evenly between orchestral, chamber and choral work. She has written commissions for ensembles including the Los Angeles Master Chorale,  Seattle Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony and her music has featured on multiple Grammy-nominated albums, including The Singing Guitar by Conspirare, BRUITS by Imani Winds, and Healing Modes by Brooklyn Rider.

Many of her choral works are published by Oxford University Press, and her piece TaReKiTa has sold over 100,000 copies worldwide.

Her life and music was profiled on Season 3 of PBS Great Performances series Now Hear This, as well as Frame of Mind, a podcast from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Esmail was the Los Angeles Master Chorale‘s 2020-2025 Swan Family Artist in Residence, and was Seattle Symphony’s 2020-21 Composer-in-Residence. She has been in residence with Tanglewood Music Center (co-Curator – 2023), Spoleto Festival (Chamber Music Composer-in-Residence – 2024) and Marlboro Music Festival (2025 Composer in Residence)

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, 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 Mazumdar, 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 resides in her hometown of Los Angeles, CA.

(last updated: January 2026)

2025-2026 Season Overview:

The 2025–26 Season will feature four premieres of new works, including a Double Concerto for Gil Shaham and Orli Shaham with the National Symphony Orchestra on February 26, 2026 (with subsequent performances at Aspen Music Festival and Virginia Symphony and Arts Festival); Terra Infirma, a concerto for harp and percussion for Yolanda Kondonassis, premiering with the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra and Strings on October 30, 2025 (with a subsequent release on Azica Records); a new string quartet for the Viano Quartet, premiering in August 2026; and Meera Kahe, a new cantata for Hindustani musicians and Baroque ensemble written for Saili Oak and Tesserae Baroque, premiering in March 2026 in Los Angeles and at the Ojai Music Festival. (The version for Western musicians, titled Subah Shaam, premiered over the previous two seasons.)

This season includes residencies at Indiana University (Bloomington, IN), the conculsion of her multi-visit residency at Interlochen Arts Academy (Interlochen, MI), Cornell College (Mount Vernon, IA) and Wingate University (Charlotte, NC), and concludes with a reprise of Malhaar: A Requiem for Water with Los Angeles Master Chorale, which will be recorded for commercial release.

2024-2025 Season Recap:

This year marked the conclusion of Esmail’s five-year term as Artist-in-Residence with Los Angeles Master Chorale, during which time she composed two of her major choral works: Malhaar: A Requiem for Water and Jahaan: Five Indian Folk Songs. It was truly an honor to be in residence with this extraordinary ensemble. 

Esmail also did residencies at several academic institutions, including: Capital University (Columbus, OH), DePauw University (Greencastle, IN), Interlochen Arts Academy (Interlochen, MI) and Phillips Exeter Academy (Exeter, NH) among others. In recent years, she has increasingly explored writing for concert band; her music (Chamak) was performed at the Midwest Clinic for the first time this season.

Esmail’s 2025 summer festival schedule included residencies at Marlboro Music Festival (2025 Composer in Residence) and Meidän Festivaali in Finland (Composer in Residence). The summer also saw major premieres and performances, including an hour-long program of solo piano music at FLOW Festival Helsinki—featuring new works written for pianist Keval Shah—the premiere of the second act of her cantata Subah Shaam at Music from Angel Fire, a performance and recording of The Tipping Point by Santa Fe Desert Chorale, and a performance of her string quartet Zeher by Brooklyn Rider.