Musical Utopias | Trance Bright

An afternoon combining music-theatre, dance and new music: marching band 9×13 bring their production Trance to Musical Utopias, with works by Anna Meredith, Johann Sebastian Bach, David Dramm, Il Hoon Son, Marc Kaptijn, John de Simone and Battles. It is followed by a special performance of Julia Wolfe and Andrew Hamilton by a mega-ensemble combining the players of 9×13, Ensemble Klang and students of the Koninklijk Conservatorium.

Set in an ageless wasteland, Trance sees the arrival and initiation of a new member to 9×13’s tribe of post-apocalyptic percussion-loving misfits. In Trance, the audience accompany our curious and unruly band of survivors on an adventure to another world. Lead by beating drums and a percussion chariot filled with tribal ephemera and junk instruments, this surreal musical ritual, full of newly composed music, strange dances, secret symbols and primal screams is an ultimate wasteland fanfare.

It’s followed by Andrew Hamilton’s Music for people who like nature and Julia Wolfe’s Arsenal of Democracy (both written for Orkest de Volharding) where multiple brass and saxophones sound a bold warning.

As Julia Wolfe says: “Art is a crucial part of Dutch society […] The title of my piece is taken from a phrase coined by Franklin Roosevelt referring to the United States’ role as an arsenal before fully entering into WWII. In more recent U.S. history this ‘arsenal of democracy’ has reached terrifying and absurd proportions. I imagined that Orkest de Volharding would be a far better arsenal, with trumpets and trombones on the front lines.”