Mary Prescott’s formal training was strictly as a classical pianist, but somewhere along the way, her practice became much more expansive than that one particular form. Skilled in piano improvisation and experimentation, Prescott’s art form has grown to incorporate movement, video work, and writing. She used all of those forms for a piece she performed at Public Functionary in 2023 called “Tida,” creating an immersive, dreamlike space of music, movement and projections. Last February, Prescott held her audience at Icehouse rapt for her wistfully erratic impromptu pieces.
Based in New York and Minnesota, the Thai-American artist will be returning to Icehouse on Jan. 30 for a sold-out event that’s a part of The Great Northern, called “Mother Tongue.” It’s a screening of a short documentary the artist created that explores cultural narratives around food, followed by a conversation and culinary samples. Before that, she’s performing “Lucent Ground” on Friday, Jan. 24 at Berlin, weaving folklore and music with collaborator Kengchakaj. For “Lucent Ground,” Prescott’s work in voice, piano, percussion, found sounds and video comes together with Kengchakaj’s electronic processing, and Thai-tuned Moog synthesizer.
Prescott’s interdisciplinary impulses started early. She never trained as a dancer, but always wanted to, until she was 14 and was told she was too old to train in ballet. But she did write outside of music, and took writing classes during college. “I think the rigidity of the classical music world made me want to rebel, I guess you could say,” she told me in an interview.
During her college years, earning piano performance degrees from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, and Manhattan School of Music, Prescott began realizing a life as a classical pianist wasn’t exactly the right path. “Everybody’s playing the same music, and they’re all judging each other on how well or not well they play that same music,” she said. “It’s full of judgment, and I was kind of not interested in that anymore.”
A new path revealed itself after Prescott founded a summer music program in Vermont with her friend Akiko Sasaki. Through the experience, Prescott got to know Sasaki’s husband, jazz pianist and composer Jesse Stacken, who grew up in Hopkins. “Jesse and I were always talking about music, and he had an improvisation a day project, and I was inspired by that,” she said.
She decided to do an improvisation a day project herself, except from the perspective as a classical, rather than a jazz pianist. “I’m gonna just forget everything that I know as best as I can, and I’m gonna try to just let go of my preconceptions about what good is and then get into it that way,” she said.
Every day, Prescott recorded herself improvising, and posted it online. “Doing that project made me think so differently about what I had done with my whole life and my whole creative process, and just what music was or could be,” she said.
Eventually, Prescott realized she wanted to move away from classical music altogether, including her teaching work. She began performing improvised piano, and then she was awarded a residency at Arts, Letters & Numbers in upstate New York where instead of devoting her time to music, she began to make videos, and taught herself video editing using Final Cut Pro. She’s found ways to bring dance into her work as well, without formal training.
“I think being a musician helps, because there’s already a natural rhythm in the body,” she said. Piano playing is a kind of choreography of the hands, with detailed, micro movements, she reasoned. “Maybe it’s just a translation to the larger body.”
For her performance this week, Prescott is bringing New York-based Thai musician Kengchakaj for a one-night show. The two performed “Lucent Brown” a year ago in New York, and are giving it another go. “I just really wanted to bring Kengchakaj here,” Prescott said.
Then on January 30, Prescott is featured in the Great Northern Festival, which opens this weekend. The festival takes place over 10 days and is chock full of performances, dining pop-ups, dialogues around issues like climate change and outdoor activities, including a sauna village.
Prescott’s event, “Mother Tongue,” is a kind of precursor to a large-scale performance piece coming to the festival in 2026, “Ancestral Table.” The future work will explore the connections between climate, migration, and cultural legacy through Thai family recipes, and will feature performance and video as well as a shared family meal.
This year, “Mother Tongue,” brought together a number of artists and community leaders who shared dishes from their cultural inheritance with each other last fall. Prescott is cooking Thai dishes for the project, with help from her mother. “She is not going to be on stage, but she is gonna be cooking with me to prepare the food,” she said.
In September, Prescott invited 5 guests to join her for a special dinner. Among them were dancer/choreographer José Luis, theater and visual artist Ifrah Mansour, museum leader Kate Beane, writer Kao Kalia Yang, and visual artist Eyenga Bokamba. Each person brought a dish that represented their cultural heritage, and told a story about it. “There’s so many stories that are told through food,” Prescott said.
At the dinner, Mansour told a story about her refugee Somali family, and how they packed the press that made canjeero (a kind of Somali pancake) first and foremost. Beane made an indigenized version of the Minnesota classic tater tot hot dish with wild rice and buffalo, Bokamba made a Congolese dish made with chicken, tomato and spinach over rice, while Luis made shredded chicken on tostadas. Yang made Hmong egg rolls, and Prescott made curry puffs, her mom’s specialty.
“Everybody who came to this meal was so sweet and so generous with their story and their food and about sharing and tasting and asking questions,” Prescott said. She documented the dinner, and will be screening the film followed by a discussion with some of the participants.
Prescott’s performance at Berlin takes place Friday, Jan. 24 at 8 p.m. at Berlin, 204 North First St., Mpls. ($15-$25). More information here. While “Mother Tongue” is sold out, you can peruse the other happenings as part of the Great Northern here. Among the events are a performance by two-spirit singer and composer Jeremy Dutcher called “Motewolonuwok” on Friday Jan. 24 at 7 p.m., and a screening of “The Last of the Sea Women,” a documentary about the haenyeo divers of South Korea’s Jeju Island who, in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, are doing their part to protect the ocean floor. It screens Saturday, Feb. 1 at 7 p.m. at The Main Cinema, 115 SE Main St., Mpls. ($15). More information here.
Sheila Regan
Sheila Regan is a Twin Cities-based arts journalist. She writes MinnPost’s twice-weekly Artscape column. She can be reached at sregan@minnpost.com.