Classical music sometimes has this notion about it that only people who are a specific
way would go to symphony concert and listen to symphony music or go to a piano recital
as opposed to you know, going to a concert of pop music or something. And I think classical
music has the ability to move people and do these great things in the same way. I guess
I feel like I am part of a revolution to make classical music as relevant as possible. I'm
Reena Esmael I'm 32 years old and I'm a composer. Any time you're hearing music, there's someone
behind that who has created that music. And I'm one of those people who creates music.
I was always interested in music from the time I was a child and I started, you know,
playing guitar violin, um, piano, and then I finally found composition. My senior year
of high school and I though OK, this is it. I'm going to go in this direction. I'm going
to be a composer. Juilliard just called me, a year after I had started composing so, after
Juilliard I did my Masters and doing my doctoral degree at Yale. My music is a kind of a reflection
of who I am, I am kind of equal parts um American and Indian. Whenever I am in a situation where
there are like thirty composers generally I will be one of very few women, and probably
the only Indian person. So it took a very long time for me to see anyone who you know,
shared the upbringing that I had, shared the culture of my family in my professional life and so
for a long time I was really divided I had an American outside life and an Indian inside
life and that can be really exciting and that can bring out so many different elements of
your personality but it can also be a little bit alienating when you feel like you're on
the outside of something. I liked the idea of being able to explain one part of myself
to the other parts of myself. I like to work between those two styles of music and I like
to kind of take all the little things that I love from each style, and combine it together
into my own personal language. As a classical composer you know, we live in this very different
world than most people do, you write for the New York Phil, the LA Phil those are the kind
of the Holy Grails of composition. You want to work with ensembles that are you know,
at a higher and higher level that are really able to conceive of your music. I am working
with the Kronos Quartet that performs music from people all around the world, and I also have a performance
at Carnegie Hall this year. This is my Carnegie Hall debut. Classical music should be accessible
to anyone who wants to hear it because there are these really deep wonderful emotional
things embedded in it that allows you to feel things. My residency with Street Symphony
is about writing music to people who are experiencing homelessness or incarceration.
But I do think it is one of the best ways I can think to use the craft that I have.
We use technology to record our ideas, we use technology to notate our ideas, we use
that same technology to give our music to musicians. Musicians now play off of tablets.
We could actually go through the entire process conceivably without ever using a piece of
paper. Thinking of melodies, when I think of one that is kind of interesting, I just
want to quickly jot it down. The minute I have an idea I can just notate it the way
the I would notate it on a piece of paper and the minute I click away from it, it turns
into a mini notation. If I decide that I want something before that then I can just move
this measure over add a different measure and add a different melody in between. To
keep pace with my busy life, um my PC is state of the art and being powered by Intel's best
processor helps me do that. I have a few students that I teach over Skype that can be anywhere
in the world. I always feel that I want to teach and always have a couple of really great
students because you know you can't think of every idea. And so I always look for students
who really challenge me, challenge my own aesthetic and style and beliefs. You create
a piece, you create a form, you create a purpose. It's important to use music from um other
cultures and old music from other cultures because for the longest time music was a craft
that meant something in society was not just a form of entertainment. I think maybe we
have lost that a little bit as music has evolved with the culture and I think if we can take
some of that music we bring back some of the relevance that goes along with it.