One of Australia’s foremost contemporary composers, Elena Kats-Chernin's vibrant and distinctive music across all genres has reached millions worldwide, featuring at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, 2003 Rugby World Cup and 2018 Commonwealth Games. Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, she has received numerous prizes including Helpmann, Limelight, Sounds Australian and Sydney Theatre Awards, the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award and the 2022 Australian Women in Music Award (AWMA) for ‘Artistic Excellence’. Oscar-winning director Adam Elliott's full-length claymation film Memoir of a Snail, with music by Kats-Chernin, won the top Cristal award for 'Best Feature Film' at the 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival, opened the Melbourne International Film Festival and was nominated for 'Best Motion Picture - Animated' in the 2025 Golden Globe Awards. 'Eliza Aria' from ballet Wild Swans (choreographer Meryl Tankard) was made famous by British bank Lloyds TSB, and was the highest-voted Australian work in the recent ABC Classic 100 Countdown of 'Feel Good' music, at No.17. Elena's Sarenka double concerto premiered by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was nominated for 'Work of the Year' in the 2024 APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards.
Kats-Chernin writes for ballet, opera, theatre, television and the concert hall, with her music performed by all major orchestras in Australia, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Brandenburg Orchestra and Australian World Orchestra; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerorchester Berlin, City of London Sinfonia, BBC Orchestra, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony and Luxembourg Philharmonie, as well as the opera houses of Antwerp, Stuttgart, and Berlin, and in festivals across the USA, Europe, and Australasia. She has been a resident composer with Magdeburg and Bremerhaven theatres recently. She has collaborated with well-known artists such as Marin Alsop, Avi Avital, Michael Collins, Mahan Esfahani, Shobana Jeyasingh, Richard Tognetti, Axel Ranisch, Simone Young, and many more, with 2025 premieres in Australia, Luxembourg and Austria. Elena collaborated for the first time with William Yang on his 2012 Sydney Festival project, 'I am a camera', with the world premiere of 'Milestone' for Sydney Festival in 2025 and AsiaTOPA.
Elena Kats-Chernin’s music is is published exclusively by Boosey & Hawkes, and recorded by Deutsche Grammophon and ABC Classics.
