# Elena Kats-Chernin

Elena Davidovna Kats-Chernin AO (born 4 November 1957) is an Uzbek-born Australian composer and pianist, best known for her ballet Wild Swans.

## Early life and career

Elena Kats-Chernin was born in Tashkent (now the capital of independent Uzbekistan, but then part of the Soviet Union) and is Jewish. She studied at the Yaroslavl Music School and the Gnessin State Musical College in Moscow from age 14, and migrated to Australia in 1975, continuing her studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, under Richard Toop (composition) and Gordon Watson (piano). She also participated in the Darlinghurst underground theatre scene, with groups such as Cabaret Conspiracy, Fifi Lamour, Boom Boom La Burn and others, often under the name Elena Kats.

## Europe

Kats-Chernin studied with Helmut Lachenmann in Germany. She remained in Europe for thirteen years, and became active in theatre and ballet, composing for state theatres in Berlin, Vienna, Hamburg and Bochum. In 1993 she wrote Clocks for the Ensemble Modern. It has since been performed around the world.

## Australia

Since returning to Australia in 1994, Kats-Chernin has written several operas, two piano concertos and compositions for many performers and ensembles, including The Seymour Group, The Song Company, The Sydney Jewish Choral Society, the Sydney Alpha Ensemble, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Chamber Made Opera, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. She was commissioned to write a piece, Page Turn, for the 2000 Sydney International Piano Competition. Her music was featured at the opening ceremonies of both the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games and the 2003 Rugby World Cup.
She wrote three silent film soundtracks for a co-production between German/French TV channels ZDF/ARTE: Victor Sjöström's Körkarlen (The Phantom Carriage, 1921), Billy Wilder and Robert Siodmak's People on Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag, 1930), and G. W. Pabst's The Devious Path (Abwege, 1928). Kats-Chernin's other works include Charleston Noir for solo piano, Rockhampton Garden Symphonies with Mark Svendsen for solo voices, mixed choirs and orchestra, and Wild Swans, a collaboration with choreographer Meryl Tankard.
She has won numerous music composition prizes in Australia, and her pieces are regularly broadcast on ABC Classic FM radio. In 2009, Kats-Chernin was commissioned by the National Museum of Australia to write a piece for orchestra called Garden of Dreams, named for one of the architectural features of the museum, which premiered at the museum the same year.
Performances of Kats-Chernin's music are available on several commercially released recordings. One album is Chamber of Horrors, released in August 2006 by Tall Poppies Records. Chamber of Horrors includes Charleston Noir, for four basses; Chamber of Horrors, for harp (1995), played by Alice Giles; Still Life, for viola and piano (2001); Gypsy Ramble, for viola, cello and piano (1996); Wild Rice, for cello (1996); and Velvet Revolution, for horn, violin and piano (1999).
Kats-Chernin's "Eliza Aria" from her score for the ballet Wild Swans (ABC Classics) is used in Lloyds TSB's 2007 television advertisements. In 2010, Wild Swans became the theme music for ABC Radio National's Late Night Live program until the end of 2015.
Kats-Chernin has written a number of ragtime pieces for piano; one of these, "Russian Rag", was used in two different instrumental ensemble arrangements, as the theme of Late Night Live until 2010. It is also used as the New York theme in Adam Elliot's feature film, Mary and Max.
Kats-Chernin is a represented composer of the Australian Music Centre.
A portrait of Kats-Chernin by Australian portrait artist Wendy Sharpe was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery (Australia) in 2019.

## Honours and awards

Elena Kats-Chernin was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in January 2019 "for distinguished service to the performing arts, particularly to music, as an orchestral, operatic and chamber music composer".

### ARIA Music Awards

The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony held by the Australian Recording Industry Association. They commenced in 1987.
| Year | Nominee / work | Award | Result |
| 2005 | Wild Swans | Best Classical Album | Nominated |
| 2008 | Slow Food | Best Classical Album | Nominated |
| 2017 | A Piece of Quiet (The Hush Collection, Vol. 16) (with Lior and The Idea of North) | Best Children's Album | Nominated |

### Australian Women in Music Awards

The Australian Women in Music Awards is an annual event that honours women for their contributions to the Australian music industry. They were first awarded in 2018.
| Year | Nominee / work | Award | Result |
| 2022 | Elena Kats-Chernin | Artistic Excellence Award | Won |
| 2022 | Elena Kats-Chernin | Excellence in Classical Music Award | Nominated |

### Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards

The Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards commenced in 1984 and recognise outstanding achievements in dance, drama, comedy, music, opera, circus and puppetry.
| Year | Nominee / work | Award | Result |
| 2013 | Elena Kats-Chernin | Individual Award | awarded |

## Works
### Operas

* Iphis, Sydney, 1997
* Matricide, the Musical, Melbourne, 1998
* Mr Barbeque, Lismore, New South Wales, 2002
* Rage of Life, Antwerp, 2010
* George, Hannover-Herrenhausen, 2014
* The Divorce, for ABC Television, 2015
* The Monteverdi Trilogy
* Whiteley, 2019
* Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer, 2019
* The Wind in the Willows [de], Staatstheater Kassel 2021, adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's children's book The Wind in the Willows

### Ballets

* Wild Swans (including "Eliza Aria")

### Vocal

* Land of Sweeping Plains, SA choir and piano (set to Dorothea Mackellar, My Country)
* Rockhampton Garden Symphonies, solo voices, mixed choirs and orchestra (with Mark Svendsen)
* The Uninvited Stranger, 2007, SATB choir (text by Sandy Jeffs)
* Human Waves, 2020, SATB choir (text by Tamara Anna Cislowska)

### Instrumental

* Butterflying (2007)
* Blue Silence (2006)
* Cadences, Deviations and Scarlatti
* Calliope Dreaming (2009))
* Chamber of Horrors, for harp
* Charleston Noir
* Clocks
* Cinema
* Frankenstein (incidental music, 2013)
* From Anna Magdalena's Notebook (six movements arranged for string quartet (Australian String Quartet) 2006, arranged for saxophone quartet (Nexas Quartet) 2016)
* Gypsy Ramble, for viola, cello and piano
* In Tension
* Intermezzo Days
* Lullaby for Nick
* Meditations of Eric Satie: Unsent Love Letters
* Page Turn
* Peggy's Minute Rag
* Phoenix Story
* Purple Prelude
* Russian Rags
* Sand Waltz
* Schubert Blues
* Setting Out
* Slicked Back Tango
* Spirit and the Maiden
* Still Life, for viola and piano
* Stur in Dur
* Tast-en
* The Offering, Piano Quintet No. 1 (2016)
* Three Dancers (2015)
* Tremors, dreams, memories (2003, written for the Indonesian pianist Ananda Sukarlan and dedicated to the victims of the Bali bombings 2002)
* Trio Grandios
* Variations in a Serious Black Dress
* Velvet Revolution, for horn, violin and piano
* Wild Rice, for cello (1996)
* Zoom and Zip

### Orchestral/concertante

* Deep Sea Dreaming
* Garden of Dreams
* Harpsichord Concerto ("Ancient Letters"), for Mahan Esfahani
* Night and Now (for flute and orchestra)
* Ornamental Air (for clarinet and orchestra)
* Piano Concerto (Displaced Dances)
* 2nd Piano Concerto
* Prelude and Cube
* Retonica
* Singing Trees
* Stairs
* Symphonia Eluvium
* Transfer
* Violin Concerto
* The Witching Hour, concerto for 8 double basses and orchestra (2016), commissioned for the Australian World Orchestra
* Inner Angels, commissioned for the Melbourne Youth Orchestra

### Films

* The Widower
* Körkarlen (The Phantom Carriage)
* People on Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag)
* Abwege (The Devious Path)
* Varieté (Variety)
* Memoir of a Snail (2024)