Lamma Studios Presents
The Speakeasy
Orchestra
A 1920s Musical Revue
About the Ensemble
Close your eyes for a moment. The lights go low. A trumpet cuts through the dark — warm, brassy, and slightly dangerous — and suddenly it isn’t the 21st century anymore- It’s 1924. The floor is sticky. The gin is cold. And somewhere between the violin and the piano, the decade that invented cool is unfolding right in front of you.
That’s what the Speakeasy Orchestra does. They don’t just play the music of the Jazz Age — they rebuild the whole world of it, song by song, note by note, until the audience stops being an audience and starts being a room full of people who can’t sit still. The Charleston. West End Blues. Stardust. S’Wonderful. Tango. Klesmer. The Great American Songbook. Each piece arrives with the weight of its era intact — the swagger, the heartbreak, the sheer, irrepressible joy of a generation that decided to dance right through its troubles.
One night with the Speakeasy Orchestra and you’ll understand exactly why the twenties roared. The Speakeasy Orchestra keeps it alive onstage, drawing from the golden age of jazz with the sass, swagger, and genuine chops the era demands.
At the core of the enterprise: Farley Sangels on trumpet and flugelhorn, whose tone could make a speakeasy go quiet; Eric Silberger on violin, a protégé of the great Itzhak Perlman who plays jazz like he was born in a Harlem ballroom; Jason Sherbundy on piano, the kind of keyboard man who makes it look easy and sound inevitable; Joey Carroll on bass, holding down the bottom with the steady authority of a bouncer who also happens to love Gershwin; and Jesse Snyder — sax, clarinet, drums, and voice — the ensemble’s most versatile cat, equally at home in the front line or behind the kit.
Together they play the music of their namesake era with the ease of professionals who’ve played everything, everywhere. Whether as an intimate combo or a full-on revue, the Speakeasy Orchestra adapts to the room, the moment, and the occasion — and always delivers the era whole.
The Musicians

Eric Silberger
Violin
Prize winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition and the Michael Hill International Violin Competition, Eric Silberger is one of the most decorated violinists of his generation. He has performed as soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, the Mariinsky Orchestra, the London Philharmonia, the Danish National Symphony, and dozens of the world’s great orchestras. Mentors have included Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, and the legendary Lorin Maazel. Critics have called his playing “spine-tingling… astonishing” (The Guardian) and “dazzling virtuoso playing” (The Washington Post). He holds degrees from Columbia University and The Juilliard School, and performs on a rare 1757 J.B. Guadagnini violin on generous loan. When the Speakeasy Orchestra wants to know what a hot fiddle really sounds like, Eric is the answer — a world-class soloist who happens to swing.

Farley Sangels
Trumpet & Flugelhorn
Farley Sangels spent the better part of two decades at the top of the orchestral world — Principal Trumpet of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Colorado Symphony, and the Baltimore Symphony, a longtime member of the Saint Louis Symphony and a busy guest principal in many major Asian orchestras. On the jazz and commercial side, he has performed in twenty-five countries across six continents, bringing the same technical command and musical intelligence to a jazz standard as to a Mahler symphony. A conductor, composer and music producer as well, he is Artistic Director of the Chamber Orchestra of Kona, and his writing on music and life appears regularly on Substack at farleysangels.substack.com. In the Speakeasy Orchestra, he steps out front as bandleader and lead arranger — the man who sets the tone, tells the story, and then picks up the horn and proves every word of it.

Jesse Snyder
Saxophones, Clarinet, Flute, Drums & Voice
One of the most sought-after musicians on Hawaii’s Big Island, Jesse Snyder is a Grammy-nominated arranger, multi-instrumentalist, and vocalist who can put down the tenor sax, pick up the drumsticks, and never miss a beat. Originally from Pennsylvania, he grew up on his grandfather’s big band records — Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller — and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Music and the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where he also had the distinction of opening for McCoy Tyner. He moved to Hawaii in 2009 and quickly became indispensable to the island’s music scene. His horn arrangements helped earn Kahulanui a Grammy nomination in 2014. His 2020 solo album MUSE showcases the full depth of his artistry. In the Speakeasy Orchestra, he covers more ground than any one musician has a right to.
Jason Sherbundy
Piano & Voice
Jason Sherbundy is a pianist, vocalist, and conductor whose musical versatility is the kind that makes other musicians quietly envious. On any given evening he might perform as soloist, accompany a vocalist, conduct a full orchestra, and sing a standard — sometimes all in the same concert. He has served as guest conductor for the South Hawaii Symphony and is a fixture in the Big Island’s jazz and classical scenes alike. At the keyboard, his playing is precise, warm, and swings hard when the moment calls for it. As a vocalist, he brings a natural ease to the standards that suits the Speakeasy Orchestra’s 1920s spirit perfectly.
Joey Carroll
Bass
Joey Carroll is the anchor. Every great jazz ensemble needs someone who holds the whole thing together from the bottom up, and in the Speakeasy Orchestra that man is Joey — a bassist of rare steadiness and taste. Whether walking a blues, laying down a tango groove for La Cumparsita, or giving a Gershwin ballad exactly the right amount of space, Joey’s playing is the kind you feel more than notice, which is exactly how a great bassist should work.
Watch & Listen
[Highlights from the Honoka’a People’s Theater, January 2026]
Upcoming Appearances
| Date | Venue | Time | Location | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thursday April 2, 2026 | Uila Records | 6:30-8:30 PM | Waimea, HI | |
| Friday, April 3, 2026 | Coffee Notes | 7-9 PM | Hilo, HI | |
| Friday, January 15th, 2027 | Honoka’a People’s Theater | 7-9:30 PM | Honoka’a, HI | |
| Sunday, January 17, 2027 | The Aloha Theater | 2:30-5 PM | Kealakekua, HI |
