Above all else, Elena Kats-Chernin lives and breathes music. Sitting at her piano, she channels the great composers of the past, working on the commissions that have made her one of Australia's most varied and prolific composers.
I felt, he longs to listen to something more calm... more melodic, more harmonic. And slowly my style just changed, my whole language changed.
Despite this, she says she finds sanctuary in smaller works of around three to six minutes: 'I feel it better, I feel the scale of it better, I feel how it's structured.'
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Whether short or long, many of Kats-Chernin's most popular pieces exude a joyful, dance-like quality that could turn almost any frown into a smile.
This is the result of a deliberate strategy that she adopted after her teenage son was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1998.
Before her son's diagnosis, Kats-Chernin says she wrote experimental music with 'a lot of noises, not so much melody'.
'Slowly my style started changing, especially if he was in the room and I was composing on the piano,' she says.
'I felt, he longs to listen to something more calm ... more melodic, more harmonic. And slowly my style just changed, my whole language changed.'
This style and language, which makes Kats-Chernin's music so memorable, is also what made the Hush Music Foundation seek her out.
Writing for the Hush Music Foundation
Hush Music Foundation commissions Australian composers to write music for children recovering in hospital, their families and health carers.
It is the brainchild of Dr Catherine Crock of the Melbourne Children's Hospital, whom Kats-Chernin hugely admires.
The aim is for composers to write music that calms patients and staff while raising funds to pay for additional treatments. Composers are asked to write music that is light and transparent, avoiding a lower register.
Kats-Chernin says she was grateful to be asked to write for the project, as finally she felt she could 'do something'.
'I wrote a piece about an imaginary cake, a cake that a patient imagines after treatment, getting better, and having a celebration,' she says.
'That cake has those little umbrellas—colourful—and those umbrellas start dancing.'
Read more: Dr Catherine Crock's spiritual diary
Beyond her son's illness, Kats-Chernin has also faced the challenge of raising three boys after her marriage ended, while pursuing a demanding career that has traditionally been unkind to women.
But she says her mother, a doctor, gave her an outlook on life that has served her well.
'I'm a quite positive thinking person. I try to look at the good in everything, in everyone, and I like to have trust in the world. My mum was like that,' she says.
'She was incredibly generous, hospitable and also very trusting. I have this from her. No matter what happens, her famous words were always, "All will be well." Whatever it was, when she said those words, I felt immediately better.'
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