Work Sample - This Love Between Us excerpts

This Love Between Us: Prayers for Unity
Reena Esmail, composer

Samina Aslam, soprano
Tahanee Aluwihare, mezzo-soprano
Gene Stenger, tenor
Paul Chwe MinChul An, bass
Michael Griska, sitar
Vikram Mukherjee, tabla
Resonance Chamber Orchestra & Festival Chorus
Maria Sensi Sellner, conductor/producer

Performed February 2, 2024
Trinity Cathedral, downtown Pittsburgh 

One of the most exciting voices in new music today, Indian-American composer Reena Esmail’s work brings communities together through the creation of equitable musical spaces.  Written in 2016, This Love Between Us: Prayers for Unity juxtaposes texts from seven different religious traditions, setting them in both English and in their original languages.  Each movement is also a unique combination of Indian and Western classical styles, spanning a continuum from the Christian movement, which is rooted firmly in the baroque style, to the Zoroastrian movement, which calls upon the Hindustani vilambit bandish. 

Excerpted movements included:

  • Mvt 1 - Buddhism (Sung in English and Pali)
    For your brother and your sister, they are like you.
    They, too, long to be happy.
    Never Harm them.

  • Mvt 2 - Sikhism (Sung in English and Gurumukhi)
    How can we call someone evil, when all are the creation of one

  • Mvt 3 - Christianity (Sung in English and Malayalam)
    …love, therefore, is the fulfilling of the law.
    The night is past and the day is at hand.
    Let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light!

  • Mvt 5 - Hinduism (Sung in English and Hindi)
    This love between us was born of the first humans;
    it cannot be eradicated
    as the river finds its way to the ocean
    what is inside me flows to you

  • Mvt 6 - Jainism (Sung in English and Adha Maghadi)
    If the mind is sinful, blamable, intent on works, acting on impulses
    producing cutting and splitting, quarrels, faults, and pains,
    if it injures living beings, if it kills creatures,
    then one should not employ such a mind in action.

  • Mvt 7 - Islam (Text of Rumi, with affirming phrases from other religions)
    The lamps may be different, but the light is the same: it comes from Beyond
    Concentrate on the essence,
    Concentrate on the Light.

“Even more than uniting musical practices, this piece unites people from two different musical traditions: a sitar and tabla join the choir and baroque orchestra. Each of the musicians is asked to keep one hand firmly rooted in their own tradition and training, while reaching the other hand outward to greet another musical culture.”

- Reena Esmail in her program notes