The 2026 countdown marked ABC Classic’s 50th anniversary and has become one of the most popular editions of the annual event in its 25-year history.
This year’s voting theme of the ‘Greatest Of All Time’ yielded confirmation for the third year in a row, that composer Elena Kats-Chernin AO remains one of Australia’s most beloved composers (as well as the long-standing reign of Ludwig van Beethoven, whose music is consistently voted #1 by music lovers far and wide).
In this much-loved annual countdown, inviting votes from listeners across Australia (totalling almost 190,000 votes this year), Elena was once again the top-voted Australian composer at #33 in the Classic100, and the highest voted female composer of any nationality (the next being Hildegard von Bingen at #84).
Kats-Chernin was also the highest-voted Australian and female composer in the 2024 ‘Classic100: Feel Good’ theme and 2025 countdown themed ‘Classic100: Piano’. In recent years, she earned a similar top position in the 2021 ‘Music You Can’t Live Without’ Countdown and 2019’s ‘Classic100: Composers’ vote, at #16, in company of the late, great Peter Sculthorpe, at #18, who referred to Elena as “our [Australia’s] Mozart“. Esteemed among colleagues, renowned composer Andrew Ford wrote this fascinating article about Elena, on the occasion of her 60th Birthday Bash (co-produced by Cinque Artist Management) at City Recital Hall: insidestory.org.au/the-plays-the-thing/
To read more about the 2026 ABC Classic100 Countdown: abc.net.au/listen/classic/countdown/classic100/1-100
Watch the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra perform this year’s Classic100 Concert recorded live at Hamer Hall – and featuring Andrea Lam performing the heart-melting slow movement from Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto, on ABC iView: iview.abc.net.au/show/classic-100-concert-2026
For more of Elena’s music live on stage, catch Kats-Chernin’s version of Monteverdi’s Coronation of Poppea as presented by Victorian Opera in June/July: victorianopera.com.au/production/the-coronation-of-poppea/