Celebrated composer Elena Kats-Chernin says she had no idea what Christmas carols were when she came to Australia in 1975. In the early months of attending high school, she joined a choir and sang carols in the Sydney Opera House.
"It was such a fantastic feeling," Kats-Chernin recalls. "I didn't know anyone and didn't speak English that well, but being in a choir helped me learn faster."
Kats-Chernin has now written the new Classic Choir song, Summer Together, in collaboration with Gunai woman and poet Kirli Saunders. The song captures the quintessential Australian summer: sharing a feed, being outdoors, spending time with loved ones.
Kats-Chernin says, "Kirli brought me this one page of words, which were just perfect to set." Elaborating further, "She talks about people coming together, having a picnic and having beautiful feed. They could be in the mountains, in the desert, camping by the forests or by the sea. And then she names different places in the First Nations languages. They have this innate inner rhythm which leapt at me."
Kats-Chernin loves this aspect of Australian summer, though she grew up in Tashkent, now the capital of Uzbekistan where summer is hot, dry and falls on a different time of year. "They grow cotton there," Kats-Chernin remembers. "Although it wasn't as hot as some of the summer days in Australia, it was getting hotter even before we came here."
The music for Summer Together has been set for a typical choir division: soprano, alto, tenor and bass, but Kats-Chernin says she also wants to capture the ranges in between, such as mezzo-soprano and baritone. She says "I like to make things sound interesting and quirky. But I think singers should have the option too. They don't have to sing the notes which are out of their range."
Most of Kats-Chernin's music begins on pen and paper. "I would do many sketches with short-hand which nobody else can understand, but that's OK. I also write them out neatly for my copyist," she reveals. "Then I start actually being creative and work out which voices should sing what, and start filling in the piano part."
Kats-Chernin compares writing the orchestral accompaniment with building a house. "We start with the piano, which has the bulk of the house because the piano usually has the sum of all parts already in what they're playing," she began. "Then in the orchestral part, the strings is like a carpet on which everything else sits. I think of brass and other instruments like tables and chairs. This is where I can be careful and creative with my music." She says the most special part is writing in instruments like piccolo which acts as "sparkling diamond ornaments" which turns a house into a home.
Kats-Chernin says having her music performed by a choir is exciting and scary. "The moment I walk into a rehearsal, there's no turning back," she shares. But she hopes people will have fun learning the music. "I hope they find it's not just a pretty song. When they sing 'First Nations people have been here all along', that's a powerful statement."
Although she doesn't sing in a choir anymore, Kats-Chernin never forgets the magic ingredient in choirs. "Every choir sounds different because different people sing in it. They are made up of actual people, with their voices and personalities." Kats-Chernin says "You can tell what a person is like by listening to their voices, which carry their emotions when they sing."