In the performance Parade, the ten musicians of neo-brass ensemble 9×13 stage a parade for a local music club. It is a nostalgic and familiar sight. But is that image accurate? After all, isn’t 9×13 the very ensemble that has been turning that same club tradition upside down for years? Is a Trojan horse being brought inside?

With Parade, 9×13 pays a loving tribute to art, music, and imagination—but also to the rich Dutch tradition of music associations. It’s a world where making music isn’t about perfection, but about coming together, having fun, and the “playing human.”

Thematically and visually, Parade is inspired by the iconic 1917 work Parade, a collaboration between composer Erik Satie, artist Pablo Picasso, writer Jean Cocteau, and choreographer Léonide Massine. Much like that revolutionary work, 9×13 plays with the line between backstage and frontstage, preparation and performance, and expectation versus reality.

Parade is a theatrical brass performance that is both moving and surprising. It is a show that doesn’t tear tradition down, but breaks it open. It tilts the familiar and invites the audience to look anew and, above all: to join the play.

Featuring music by:

Evelien van den Broek, Erik Satie, Thomas van Dun, Brendan Faegre, Maxim Shalygin, Alban Berg