Elena Kats-Chernin is an Australian composer and pianist born in Tashkent (then in the Uzbek SSR) who settled in Australia in the early 1990s and began her career composing for theatre, dance and chamber ensembles, working primarily in contemporary classical and crossover genres. Her music blends accessible melody with rhythmic drive and elements drawn from folk, jazz and minimalism, and over her career she has written works for orchestra, ballet, film and stage that often feature colourful orchestration and concise, episodic forms.
