Prohibition
Prohibition: what you weren’t meant to hear.
Prohibition draws on the smoky, subversive soundworld of the Jazz Age, featuring classical and jazz music censored for its politics, poetry, sexuality, or the identity of its creators and performers. From Bessie Smith’s radical feminism to Schoenberg’s scandalous Brettl-Lieder and the maligned works of Erich Korngold, the program asks a simple question nearly a century later: what about these melodies and texts still unsettles us – and why?
recent
Telfair museum • savannah
Liz Lang • Soprano & Creator
Howard Watkins • Piano
John Tisby • Trumpet
Harlem • New York
Liz Lang • Soprano
James Bassi • Piano
Rooted
IN DEVELOPMENT
A genre-spanning musical map of identity.
Two voices, many homelands – Rooted weaves together Arabic melodies, German Lieder, Hungarian folk songs, and unexpected crossovers to explore heritage, migration, and belonging. Intimate and personal, the program traces how music carries history in a celebration of where we come from – and where we’re going.
upcoming
Harlem • New York
Liz Lang • Soprano & Co-Creator
Matt Krenz • Tenor & Co-Creator
Dr. Nathanial Gumbs • Piano
April 19, 2026
I’m not mad
Ophelia, with agency.
Through classical music, musical theater, and folk tunes, i’m not mad examines the psychology of Ophelia’s life and death, asking why women in the canon are so often defined by fragility, silence, and collapse. Part character study, part cultural interrogation, the program reframes Ophelia as conscious, articulate, and autonomous – not broken, but understood on her own terms.
recent
Harlem • New York
Liz Lang • Soprano & Creator
Yukiko Takana • Piano
Laura Flanagan • Psychological Consultant
Sofia Esteve • Artist
A Room of their own
IN DEVELOPMENT
A Baroque-fusion experiment about women who worked inside systems designed to contain them.
Set against the intellectual ferment of 17th-century Venice, A Room of Their Own centers two real women who defied patriarchal norms: a Baroque composer rumored to be a sex worker, and a nun who published a subversive feminist critique from within convent walls. Blending historical performance practice with newly composed music, the project creates a unique Baroque-fusion soundscape that explores resistance, authorship, and the exhilarating danger of women operating in systems where permission, consent, and power are rarely aligned.
ARTIST RESIDENCY
VENICE • ITALY
Liz Lang • Vocalist & Creator
Gary Radke • Art History Consultant
Paola Vojnovic • Art History Consultant
Jenny Peterson • Baroque Consultant
Gary & Nancy Rade • Artist Residency Sponsors
The fach?
IN DEVELOPMENT
All the notes. All the styles. Boxes not included.
The Fach? is a solo show-in-development that plays on the German system of vocal classification – and the many other boxes performers are expected to fit into. With dark humor and unapologetic self-awareness, the project examines how voice, body, and gender are categorized, marketed, and exploited – and what happens when you stop trying to fit neatly into the boxes assigned to you.
upcoming
New York • New York
Liz Lang • Vocalist & Co-Creator
James Blaszko • Director