• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • News
  • Calendar
    • 2017-2018 Season
    • 2016-2017 Season
    • 2015-2016 Season
    • 2014-2015 Season
    • 2013-2014 Season
    • 2012-2013 Season
    • 2011-2012 Season
    • 2010-2011 Season
    • 2009-2010 Season
  • Bio
    • Teaching
  • Catalog
    • Upcoming Music
    • Orchestra and Choir
      • This Love Between Us: Prayers for Unity
      • Take What You Need
      • I Rise: Women in Song
    • Orchestra (Without Choir)
      • Meri Sakhi Ki Avaaz (My Sister’s Voice)
      • #metoo
      • Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra
      • Avartan (आवर्तन)
      • Vishwas (विशवास)
      • Teen Murti (तीन मुर्ति)
      • Aria
      • The Blue Room
    • Choir
      • When the violin
      • I Rise: Women in Song
      • TaReKiTa (तारेकिट)
      • Take What You Need
      • Even After All this Time…
      • Earth Speaks
      • Curiosity
      • Tuttarana
      • Asterion in the Tropics
      • White Key
      • Ritual
      • Ave Maria
    • Vocal
      • Anjuman Songs
      • Chuti Hui Jagah – The Space Between
      • Two Tones
      • Unfortunate Coincidence
    • Large Ensemble
      • Feritas
      • Teen Murti (तीन मुर्ति)
    • Small Ensemble
      • A Canticle for Dawn
      • “From the Mahabharata” Suite
      • Khirkiyaan (खिड़कियाँँ)
      • Piano Quintet
      • String Quartet
      • Tasveer (तसवीर)
    • Solo Instrument
      • Chardonnay
      • il Giuoco del Guioco delle Coppie
      • Jhula Jhule (झूला झूले)
      • Nishani (निशानी)
      • Rang De Basant
      • Perhaps
      • The Whole Story
    • Multimedia/Film
    • Indian A Cappella
    • Arrangements
  • India
  • Press
    • Media
    • Photos
    • Instagram
  • Shop
  • Contact
  • Cart

Reena Esmail

Composer

Aria

for Hindustani Vocalist and Orchestra
premiered on December 9, 2009
by Meena Shivaram and the Yale Philharmonia
Yang Jiao, conductor
Sprague Concert Hall, Yale University

Program Note:

Even though my heritage is Indian, my musical training has been solely in western classical music. It is only recently that I have begun to learn about and explore Hindustani (North Indian) classical music, and incorporate its elements into my work. Though the combination of the unique resultant sounds of these two types of music are interesting to explore, it is the differences between the cultures and traditions from which these sounds emerge that interest me the most. My aim is not to create music that sounds “fused” as much as music that builds on the values and principles from both cultures and musical traditions, and that can function in both.

Aria is my third and largest piece in this style (preceded by a piano quintet and a bassoon solo) and is my first attempt to incorporate a Hindustani classical musician into my music. An aria is a form found in western classical opera, in which a solo singer, accompanied by an orchestra, expresses a sentiment to the audience while demonstrating vocal virtuosity. In this instance, I have used the setting of an aria to create a small window into the world of Hindustani vocal music. The orchestra follows the singer through the beginning of a Hindustani aalap (vocalise) section in Raag Todi, which falls away to a western-style orchestral tutti on the themes of her phrases. She returns for a series of taans (fast virtuosic passages using sargam, or solfege) in Raag Yaman while the orchestra echoes the mukhra (head of the tune) which in a traditional Hindustani setting, she would have sung after each taan. She eventually begins to sing the antara (B section) of the traditional Hindustani bandish (composition) “Sakhi Eri Aali Piya Bina”. She then has a western-style solo cadenza, and returns to sing the sthaayi (A section) of the same composition. As she sings in Yaman, phrases of Todi seep through in a duet between the oboe and english horn.

—

Aria — full piece (13:15)

https://www.reenaesmail.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/aria-fullrecording.mp3

Excerpt: Aalap — Tutti (1:02)

https://www.reenaesmail.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/aria-alap-to-tutti.mp3

Excerpt: Antara — Cadenza (1:48)

https://www.reenaesmail.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/aria-antara-cadenza.mp3

Excerpt: Taans (1:07)

https://www.reenaesmail.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/aria-taans.mp3

—

An excerpt from Aria, cut for use during my talk at The INK Conference, in Jaipur, India:

Click to load this video in a new window.

** a note to listeners: it is very difficult to hear a lot of the quiet sounds in this piece with the speakers on computers/laptops

Purchase Score

Copyright © 2019 Reena Esmail | All Rights Reserved.