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Jon Langford
The Executioner’s Last Songs

About

This new music-theater performance combines Jon Langford's songs with his writing and visual art. An encompassing work, it unfolds as a personal story of Langford's life and passions, from a Welsh schoolboy to a reluctant pop-punk star and finally a passionate activist-artist. Best known for his resilient punk band the Mekons, Langford became one of the leaders of the Chicago-based alternative country music movement. The Executioner’s Last Songs is based upon a project with the same title: a three-volume set of old American “songs of murder, mob-law, & cruel, cruel punishment” recorded with his Pine Valley Cosmonauts and other musicians to raise support for the Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

Funding

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Support is provided by the National Performance Network Residency Program.