Chicago-born Indian-American composer Reena Esmail works between the worlds of Indian and Western classical music, and brings communities together through the creation of equitable musical spaces. She holds degrees in composition from The Juilliard School and the Yale School of Music, and spent 2011-12 in India on a Fulbright-Nehru scholarship, studying Hindustani (North Indian) music. 

Esmail is currently Artist in Residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale. She is also Artistic Director of Shastra, a non-profit organization that promotes cross-cultural music connecting music traditions of India and the West.

As Seattle Symphony's composer-in-residence in 2020-21, Esmail planned an overture-like short, energetic piece, as an opener for the 2020 season, something like Mozart's overture to The Marriage of Figaro, or Bernstein's overture to Candide. But Covid-19 upset these plans, and the composition became an opener to the new, uncertain, post-pandemic world. The work opens and closes with a plaintive solo oboe, positioned separate from the orchestra. In the closing, the orchestral oboe joins the solo one from within the orchestra.