What do you get when you combine ten leading musicians, contemporary music and a marching band? 9×13!

9×13 is a brass band with a difference – a group rooted in the Dutch brass band and ‘fanfare’ tradition. They breathe new life into this tradition through their use of colourful costumes, choreography, marching or processional and any other theatrical means which appeals to them.

With flute, saxophones, horn, trumpet, trombones, tuba and percussion 9×13 brings contemporary music directly to a broad and diverse audience. At first look, a traditional marching band, but it’s much more. It’s a brass band reborn: theatrical, challenging and versatile. A performance by 9×13 combines the pomp of parades, the spontaneity of a sidewalk performance, and the technical proficiency of a classical music showcase.

The group’s latest show Morendo is inspired by the New Orleans ‘second line’ and jazz funeral tradition. Morendo is an indication, within a score, on how to perform a section of music: ‘dying away, till no longer audible’. We also die away. All of us. Inescapably. In Morendo the ten professional musicians of 9×13 bring a touching and uplifting story of love, death and mourning. Music by leading contemporary composers, sophisticated direction and tight choreography transforms a funeral procession into a swinging and exuberant celebration of life, and finally returns to our one shocking certainty: death. 9×13 guarantees a strong dose of the newest new music, packaged in an accessible and festive marching band. It is the most swinging funeral procession ever, one that could have marched straight out of a film by Alex van Warmerdam: provocative, theatrical and absurd.

Check out our live trailer below!

Morendo is made possible with financial
support from Fonds 21, the VSB Fonds
and the Performing Arts Fund NL.

9×13 is an initiative of Stichting Ensemble Klang