My Pandemic Music

Michael Leach, PhD

Since the start
of the Covid pandemic
and my mother’s passing,
I’ve found I’ve been listening
to more and more classical music,

including but not limited
to the compositions of

Elena Kats-Chernin
Graeme Koehne
Sungji Hong
Franz Liszt
Gabriela Ortiz
and Antonio Vivaldi.

Perhaps this has something
to do with experiencing the spectrum
of unsung emotions—
feelings
that are sometimes reflected
in composition titles,
ranging

from Vivaldi’s
‘Winter’
to Kats-Chernin’s
‘Blue Silence’
to Koehne’s
‘Forty Reasons to be
Cheerful’.

Michael J. Leach is an Australian academic and writer who communicates science, primarily in relation to health humanities. Michael holds a Bachelor of Pharmacy, Graduate Certificate of Science (Applied Statistics), Master of Biostatistics and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Pharmacoepidemiology. He is currently performing interdisciplinary research on quality and safety in healthcare at the Monash University School of Rural Health, where he works as a Senior Lecturer in Education and Research. Outside office hours, he pens plays and poems. His science-themed plays have been performed by Bendigo Theatre Company, and a number of poems have been published, anthologized, displayed in exhibitions and awarded prizes. Michael’s poetry books include the chapbook Chronicity (Melbourne Poets Union, 2020) and the full-length collection Natural Philosophies (Recent Work Press, 2022). He lives on unceded Dja Dja Wurrung Country and acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land.

You can find more about him on: https://mleach11.wixsite.com/writing.