Ágota SZILÁGYI · vocal
Kinga MEZEI · vocal
Áron BALÁZS · vocal
Tijana STANKOVIĆ · vocal, violin
Andrea BERENDIKA · flute, alto flute
Bogdan RANKOVIĆ · alto sax, bass clarinet
Péter BEDE · tenor sax, alto sax, clarinet
Gergő KOVÁTS · tenor sax, soprano sax
Béla BURÁNY · baritone sax, soprano sax
Ádám MEGGYES · trumpet
Árpád KISS · trumpet
Branislav AKSIN · trombone
Albert MÁRKOS · violoncello
Máté POZSÁR · piano
Ervin MALINA · double bass
Ernő HOCK · double bass
Oliver MAYNE · vibraphone, glockenspiel
István CSÍK · drums
Szilárd MEZEI · conductor

In Zenta everyone knows Hotel America on the bank of the Tisza River. It is a building not smaller or larger than any other in the vicinity. The narrow, single doors in the basement are special peculiarities of that hotel. Namely, Tito’s communist Partisans occupied the region at the end of WW II, in the autumn of 1944. In Zenta, they had detained people in the basement of Hotel America, where they not only tortured the detainees but also beat many of them to death. In the Délvidék there were numerous places like Hotel America at that time: town or council hall cellars, mills, granaries, football pitches were used for such purpose. Most of the innocent victims of execution rest in unmarked or earlier designated mass graves. In the region along the Tisza, most frequently, the river happened to be their final resting place. Not a single word could have been uttered about these acts of the Partisans for almost half a century. The Hungarians in Yugoslavia lived together with their murderers; what’s more, the heroic Partisans were set up as role models.

Szilárd Mezei wanted to pay homage to these innocent victims of execution.

György Szabados, the “father” of Hungarian free improvisation music, also composed a similar piece: Az események titkos története (Históriás ének /az emlékezet előtti időkből/) /The Secret History of the Events (Historic song/from times immemorial)/. In Hungary, talking about the Revolution of 1956 was also forbidden until the late 1980s. Why do I refer to Szabados’s work? Both authors belong to the same school, the same genre of music, and they are the Master and his student. Szabados pays tribute to the purity of the Revolution of 1956, the revolutionists, and those who were killed or executed during the aftermath of the Revolution, whereas Mezei honours the memory of the innocent Hungarian victims of the massacre perpetrated by the Partisans in 1944. Szabados and his co-musicians put to.......
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