Elena Kats-Chernin (born 1957) is a Soviet-born Australian pianist and composer. She was born in Tashkent (now the capital of independent Uzbekistan, but then part of the Soviet Union) and migrated to Australia in 1975.


She has written operas, ballets, vocal music, orchestral scores and film scores. Today’s piece is her musical meditation on the unsent love letters of the avant-garde French composer Erik Satie. When Erik Satie died, friends found dozens of unsent love letters in his Paris apartment.
You may have already heard Kats-Chernin’s music on TV and at the cinema with the long-running Lloyds TSB advertising campaign ‘For the journey…’ which uses the Eliza Aria from her ballet Wild Swans.