program note: A cycle of abstract, grotesque songs that became the seedbed for the later opera of the same name. Conceived as a promenade, the suite walks the listener through a fantastical journey of visions, hallucinations and strange characters. Soprano and piano are extended by electronics into a wider, dislocated expressive field, the intimate art-song tradition twisted into something surreal and unsettling. Each song is a room in a dream-house, the voice wandering from one uncanny scene to the next. More than a recital, it is an early laboratory: the imaginative world, the disorientation and the absurd figures here laid the foundations for Promenade over the Universe.

première: May 2023 | recorded at Marmalade Music Studio, Delft.