Mary Prescott
Lives and works in the United States.
Mary Prescott is an American composer, pianist, and interdisciplinary artist whose practice is deeply rooted in experimental music, storytelling, and embodied performance. With a background in classical music and a bold approach to form, Prescott creates immersive, narrative-driven works that blend sound, text, movement, and media to explore themes of identity, trauma, and cultural memory.
Raised in Minnesota by a Thai mother and American father, Prescott draws on her bicultural background to interrogate the complexities of belonging, assimilation, and inherited silence. Her compositions often transcend genre, fusing elements of contemporary classical, improvisation, noise, and electronic music into expansive sonic landscapes. Her works are emotionally resonant and richly layered, revealing inner worlds shaped by personal and collective histories.
Prescott’s performances are characterized by a physical intensity and performative risk, pushing the boundaries of what a musical experience can be. In her acclaimed solo work Songs Between Life and Death, she weaves voice, piano, and electronics into a haunting meditation on grief and resilience. In Tida, an interdisciplinary performance commissioned by Roulette Intermedium, she explored intergenerational trauma and matrilineal memory through sound, movement, and spoken word – inviting audiences into a tender yet unflinching reckoning with loss, identity, and healing.
Beyond the stage, Prescott is an advocate for cultural equity in the arts. She has participated in numerous artist residencies, including those at Roulette, the National Performance Network, and The Performance Project at University Settlement. Her work is supported by organizations such as the Jerome Foundation, the MAP Fund, and the New Music USA Creator Fund.
With a practice that dissolves the walls between disciplines and redefines what musical performance can mean, Mary Prescott stands at the forefront of a new generation of artists using sound as a vessel for deep personal and political inquiry.
Selection
Mary Prescott
«Sunder» (2024-present) is an ongoing process of study in Grief and Ease connecting the artist’s present day lived experiences with those inherited from her ancestral feminine, transmuting Thai mythologies, spirituality and cultural rites. Sunder is an interdisciplinary performance involving music and sound, word, movement and film.
Approximately 90 minutes
Mary Prescott
«He Disappeared into Complete Silence» (2018) by Mary Prescott and Darius Jones is a theatrical interdisciplinary performance piece interpreting the work of Louise Bourgeois. In 9 vignettes, the artists express nostalgia for childhood, psychological violence, and a deep sense of loneliness and isolation – themes Bourgeois personified through architectural drawings and parable-like texts.
Movement, sound, music, word, installation: 60 minutes
Performed by Mary Prescott and Darius Jones. Photography by Adela Wagner.
Mary Prescott
«Songs Between Life and Death» (2019) by Mary Prescott is an 80-minute performative song cycle for 3 voices, violin, trumpet, bass and piano. Inspired by conscious spiritual existence unattached from the physical body, «Songs Between Life and Death» explores the hidden spaces, emotional experiences, clarity, and chaos of inhabiting this unknown place for the first time.
Commissioned by Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn, NY, made possible with funds by the Jerome Foundation, «Songs Between Life and Death» premiered on April 30, 2019, performed by Nina Dante, Ariadne Greif and Sara Serpa (voices); Ilmar Gavilán (violin); Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet); Nick Dunston (bass); and Mary Prescott (piano).