Zygmund de Somogyi - 'GREDOS (Starship I)' (Live at Composers Conference 2023)

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"Have you ever been told you don't know what love is?" I feel like I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to avoid thinking about my teenage years, to the point where my memory of that time in my life feels hazy at best, and nonexistent at worst. If you were a troubled kid, it’s painful to look back at a time filled with emotional outbursts, angst, bad decisions, “cringe”, and a whole manner of things one might prefer to leave in the past. ​ GREDOS (Starship I) was conceived through the process of (mis)remembering a particular school trip I took when I was 14, recontextualising small fragments of text from (mis)remembered scrap journals and deleted messages as a science-fiction adventure. The cantata’s six movements are full of contradictions and juxtapositions, oscillations between intimacy and intensity, the sci-fi story broken up by (mis)remembered anecdotes about a past you can’t quite comprehend outside of how it made you feel. ​ In essence, GREDOS (Starship I) is a piece about healing your inner child. I’m hoping that this small step to that end may help others do the same. The composition and premiere of 'GREDOS (Starship I)', and participation in the Composers Conference, is made possible due to the generous support of the Fromm Foundation of Harvard University.