Senya Scott ‘26

Edan Raen is a second-year and music third from Houston, Texas. It is no secret that she has quite a heavy hand on the music scene here at Sarah Lawrence College. Not only is she the co-chair of the Sarah Lawrence Music Festival, but she writes and performs her very own pieces as well. Raen’s music journey goes far back, “When I was little I used to stick my head in the washing machine so that my singing wouldn’t make an echo. So that was probably my first work.”

She soon progressed from washing machine concerts to musical theater in high school. She then began to study music theory, and this is where her artistic creativity was able to take flight. The purpose behind Raen’s music is one of personal and raw emotion. “I don’t write my songs for other people to hear them. I guess I do now, but when I began writing songs it was more of a self-soothing, processing thing. This is still kind of true. I would just play them for myself over and over again,” Raen said.

Raen’s music to herself is a processing tool above all else. Regarding her newest EP, she focuses on those emotional elements within her latest project: “This new record is called Tender Heart. It’s what my mom called me when I was growing up because I felt everything so deeply. It’s centering around these relationships where there’s a disconnect between my depth of feeling and their depth of feeling.” You can feel that in not only the music but the symbols that surround it, “You can see it on the album cover where it’s me holding myself in this vulnerability and offering that vulnerability instead of seeing it as a weakness.”

As for challenges, there were those inevitable bumps in the road when getting the album released. “This record has just been a lesson in patience. I was initially wanting to release it in the summer but that didn’t work out. It was accepting that it would happen when it happened, and it’s all fallen together beautifully.”

For many of us, music is such a personal experience. Raen’s hope for her listeners is that they don't shy away from that feeling. There is this real artistic collectiveness that she hopes will come from her work when people hear it. “The most beautiful part of sharing your music with other people is that it feels so unifying. So often people feel isolated in their sadness. It stewards you through whatever the painful thing is. I hope it can help people move through that feeling.”

Raen is big on sharing her creative space with others and wants to see a future of collaboration for herself and other artists at Sarah Lawrence. “Every time I create, it just opens more doors for collaboration. I would be excited to engage in that energy exchange with people. That’s what fills me up.”

Edan Raen’s Tender Heart