Elena Kats-Chernin
Elena Kats-Chernin was born in Tashkent, in Uzbekistan, former USSR, in 1957. Her studies, begun at the Yaroslavl Music School, continued after matriculation at age 14 at the selective Gnesin Musical College in Moscow. In 1975 she migrated with her family to Australia where she studied composition with Richard Toop at Sydney Conservatorium of Music. While a student she received several prizes. Granted a German(DAAD) scholarship she studied with Helmut Lachenmann in Hannover and Stuttgart in 1980-1982. Elena remained in Europe for over a decade. She became active as a composer for Reinhild Hoffmann's dance theatre as well as incidental music for drama at the State Theatres in Berlin (Schaubuhne),Vienna (Burgtheatre), Bochum and Hamburg. Elena returned to live in Sydney, Australia, in 1994.

She has written works for many genres, including pieces for symphony orchestra, choir, chamber works and those with electronics, like Clocks, a 20 minute work that since its premiere by the Ensemble Modern, had close to or more than ten different performances around the world and appears on a CD Clocks on ABC Classics label. The film of the same name based on Elena's music, by German filmmaker Kirsten Winter, was awarded at many international festivals, incl. Montreal World Wide Film Festival. In 1996 Elena's piece Cadences, Deviations and Scarlatti won the Sounds Australian Award and in the same year she was also awarded the Peggy Glanville Hicks Fellowship and the Jean Bogan Memorial Prize for the piano piece Charleston Noir.

Parallel to writing pieces for the concert hall Elena Kats-Chernin also composed two chamber operas: Iphis and Matricide, both receiving critical acclaim in Sydney and Melbourne respectively . She also wrote soundtracks to three silent movies for German TV channel ZDF/Arte, most recently, Robert Siodmak's and Billy Wilder's Menschen am Sonntag (1929),performed live at the Karlsbad Film Festival in July 2000. In September her 8 minute piece for the segment Deep Sea Dreaming, written for children's choir and symphony orchestra was performed during the Opening Ceremony for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and broadcast to a huge audience around the world.

Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes.