Cities And Memory

"In my composition, I mixed the sound of an air raid siren in Prague, Czechia; the sound of a metronome as a symbol of time’s relentless march and history’s cyclical nature; two voices: a child repeating after his mother the names of Ukrainian cities; and an old Ukrainian folk song, Grey Goose, sung dramatically by a solo a cappella female voice (Yulia Volovik). "I chose the air raid siren in Prague because this sound triggers my feelings about the painful facts I have lived with since 2014. How come 1968 and 2014 are connected in my mind? I didn’t reflect enough on the Soviet invasion of Prague in 1968. I was just a little child then, but later, I learned about the eight people (the only eight people in the entire USSR) who were brave and noble enough to protest on Red Square. They became my gods. I later met one of them, Natalia Gorbanevskaya, in Paris, and we stayed in touch for a while. I considered her to be much more human than I was, and I wasn’t able to make friends with her. I regret that. "In 2014