I wrote Cities on the Aerial Paths of Communication in 1990. It is about the fall of the Soviet Union but seems appropriate now – tragically. After the 1917 Russian revolution, artists, writers, and architects sought to build a new utopian society. This era of creative freedom was intense but short-lived, and by the 1930s, it was crushed by the brutality of Stalin. In 1928 Georgi Krutikov, an architectural student, created a series of drawings of futuristic flying cities, or “Cities on the Aerial Paths of Communication.” in the song, the utter and unredeemable failure of the Soviet Union contrasts starkly with the early visions of the “dreamers of a bright and shining world.” In recording the song, I asked violinist Lisa Gutkin to play a dissonant elegy as if alone in Red Square.