Harmonious Exchange by Parade of One, Inc.

28.06.2023 - 20.00 / Galicia Jewish Museum, ul. Dajwór 18, Kraków

Jeremy Danneman (saxophone, clarinet, vocals)
Sophie Nzayisenga (inanga, vocals)
William Parker (doublebass)
Tim Keiper (drums)

In 2009, Jeremy Danneman decided to have a birthday parade instead of a party. He took his saxophone and wandered through Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan for over eleven hours. He discovered that day that he had a special interest in street performance because he could reach all kinds of people and not just the types who came to wherever he happened to perform. There was an inherent social transgression to it. Eager to expand his street performance to new “stages”, Danneman founded the Parade of One project to engage the global community with street performance. He chose Rwanda as his first destination because that year they were commemorating the fifteenth anniversary of the Genocide against the Tutsi, and Danneman was eager to reach people of his own generation who had experienced similar conditions to what his grandparents had endured as Jews in WWII-era Poland and Germany.

While in Rwanda, Danneman met Sophie Nzayisenga. Danneman had long been fascinated by Nzayisenga’s instrument, the inanga, the national instrument of Rwanda. Nzayisenga is the world’s only female professional inanga player. During Danneman’s trip to Rwanda, they performed at the Goethe Institute of Kigali.

In 2015, Nzayisenga joined Danneman in New York City where they recorded their album Honey Wine, also featuring the renowned jazz bassist William Parker and drummer Tim Keiper (David Byrne, Matisyahu.) During this trip, Danneman and Nzayisenga performed at farmer’s markets in accordance with the Parade of One’s mission of engaging audiences in diverse public spaces and gave workshops in public schools, reaching students with music, tales of distant places, and a social message against ethnic violence. Their album Honey Wine was released in 2017 by Ropeadope Records with support from the Puffin Foundation.

This performance is supported by Mid Atlantic Arts through USArtists International in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Tickets: 50 PLN available at the museum reception desk or online