Dedicated to Haydn, in her country's name

ELENA Kats-Chernin sometimes has been referred to as a young, up-and-coming composer, but she's happy to point out that neither of these apparently flattering descriptions applies. At 51, Kats-Chernin is no ingenue or newcomer to the international music scene.

ELENA Kats-Chernin sometimes has been referred to as a young, up-and-coming composer, but she's happy to point out that neither of these apparently flattering descriptions applies. At 51, Kats-Chernin is no ingenue or newcomer to the international music scene.

Born in Russia, the composer has been in Australia since her teens, apart from a period of study in Germany, and has been composing since she was six. She has written extensively for the theatre, including three operas, with great success. One of the pieces she wrote for the ballet Wild Swans was used in advertisements for Britain's Lloyds Bank, which contributed to the commercial success of the Wild Swans CD in Britain.

She wrote music for the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and her compositions have been used for the 2003 Rugby World Cup and as the theme music for the ABC's Late Night Live program. Now Kats-Chernin has been asked to represent Australia in Austria for Dedicated to Haydn (D2H), a composition project designed to mark the bicentenary of the death of the composer sometimes regarded as the father of the classical form.

Her composition is a piano trio called Calliope Dreaming, one of 18 trios written by prominent composers from across the world to be performed as part of the Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt. The event is called TRIOthalon, and the compositions will be performed by the artists in residence, the Haydn Trio Eisenstadt.

Kats-Chernin says her title has a double reference: to Calliope the muse, and an unusual organ-like musical instrument that features a series of steam whistles.

"I imagined a flute-organ-like sound," she says. "But the piece came before the title. It had to be a tribute to (Haydn's) death, but at no point did I want it to be mournful or sad. After all, he wrote many humorous pieces and he lived a good, full life. The piece had to reflect his own oeuvre.

"I've read in his biographies that he wanted the Mourning symphony to be played at his death, so I have borrowed from that, but I have used many other melodic ideas and just responded to them.

"My piece is much more joyful and energetic than the original symphony. It is both an homage to the man and his work, and a response to it."

Her facility for "plunging into older music" is one possible reason Kats-Chernin was chosen to represent Australia. She joins six Austrian composers, six Europeans and five others from across the world for the occasion.

She stresses the subtlety of this homage. "Some might see this as almost a free ticket to plagiarise, but I love to pay tribute to those great composers and would never misuse something," she says.

"I've done it with Bach, Beethoven and Chopin. But I try to make it different, but somehow familiar. It is not just that I do not want it to be too obvious, but that there are really two things working on parallel levels and there are two strains of thought."

Although she has worked extensively in the theatre, Kats-Chernin revels in the freedom of working with an idea rather than a strict narrative. As for Haydn, she loves the lightness of his music and the way he shaped his compositions. And like most people who play the piano, she was more than well acquainted with the piano sonatas, which she loves. "A Haydn piano sonata was my entry piece for the conservatorium," she says.

Despite her growing body of work and contacts with international orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, Kats-Chernin says she was surprised to be asked to represent Australia at D2H. But when talking to her, it is easy to understand her empathy with "Papa Haydn", who was renowned for his extraordinary energy, humour and sense of melody. Her energy is boundless: she composes almost every day, at the piano, using a pencil, and she usually has several things on the go at once.

As well as the D2H project, Kats-Chernin has written a 25-minute orchestral piece to be performed in Canberra next month at the National Museum, called Garden of Dreams. The Australian National University's school of music also is having a series of concerts dedicated to Haydn, sponsored by the Austrian embassy. The concerts include a composition competition for students, with the prize being a trip to Austria.

Calliope Dreaming, by Elena Kats-Chernin, will be performed on April 30 at the Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria.