{"id":2279441,"date":"2026-02-12T21:05:52","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T21:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2279441"},"modified":"2026-02-12T21:05:52","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T21:05:52","slug":"from-new-life-to-grief-ella-macenss-music-for-the-melbourne-symphony-orchestra-is-rooted-in-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/from-new-life-to-grief-ella-macenss-music-for-the-melbourne-symphony-orchestra-is-rooted-in-love\/","title":{"rendered":"From new life to grief, Ella Macens’s music for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is rooted in love"},"content":{"rendered":"

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There are countless examples across time and genres of musicians using music to express love.<\/p>\n

There’s even an entire period of music called the Romantic era.<\/p>\n

In the 19th century, composers wove their feelings into notes on the score and the sounds they made.<\/p>\n

“Music is like a road map to our emotions,” says ABC Classic presenter Mairi Nicolson.<\/p>\n

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“[Music can] bypass language and goes straight into our solar plexus.“<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

In the orchestral world in particular, composers have realised music’s ability to express complex, nuanced emotions without saying a word.<\/p>\n

Australian composer Ella Macens drew on this tradition in her newest composition, My Heart On Yours.<\/p>\n

Commissioned by ABC Classic, with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, as a love letter for the network’s 50th birthday, the music evolved to explore different facets of love during its composition.<\/p>\n

The music started as Macens’s reflections on the beauty and the heartache of love separated by distance.<\/p>\n

But the music is not confined to the shiny, bubbly feeling of romantic love, though it started that way.<\/p>\n

After Macens experienced first-hand the Bondi terror attack in December, the music grew to encompass love’s power to heal us from hate and harm.<\/p>\n

Expressing feelings without words<\/h2>\n

Falling in (or out) of love has inspired musicians and music-lovers to dance the night away, sing their hearts out, or simply cry after a heartbreak.<\/p>\n

But tapping into these emotions without words requires a different set of skills.<\/p>\n

Classical composers have expressed “the whole gamut of human feelings” on paper for centuries, Nicolson says.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of composers who took to the piano, for example, in the name of love.<\/p>\n