Lucent Ground conjures a folkloric sound experience unfolding from ancient Asian mythologies and wonders of the natural and supernatural worlds. For voice, piano, percussion, electronics, and video. The performance will begin at 8 p.m. and will last for approximately one hour.

Mary Prescott: voice, piano, percussion, found sounds, video
Kengchakaj: electronic processing, Thai-tuned Moog synthesizer

Mary Prescott is a Thai American interdisciplinary artist, composer, and pianist who explores the foundations and facets of identity and social conditions through experiential performance. Her output includes several large-scale interdisciplinary works, improvised music, opera, sound journaling, film music, and solo and chamber concert works. In “21 for ‘21: Composers and Performers Who Sound Like Tomorrow,” The Washington Post described Mary’s work as “a bright light cast forward ... uncompromising” and “masterfully envisioned.” Mary is an awardee of the McKnight Composer Fellowship, the Princess Grace Award, NPN Creation and Development Fund, a New Music USA Grant, and many more. Her recent residencies include Camargo, VCCA and Lanesboro Arts. She was selected for the 2023 Harlem Stage WaterWorks cohort. Mary holds piano performance degrees from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and the Manhattan School of Music; she is a Steinway Artist.

Kengchakaj is a Bangkok-born, New York-based award-winning pianist, improviser, and electronics experimentalist. Kengchakaj’s practice engages with improvising sounds that draw inspiration from ancestral soundscapes, knowledge, and modes of collaboration and expression rooted in Southeast Asian tradition and lineage. He is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, a Fulbright Scholarship recipient, and a Gold Award Lumen Prize winner with Nitcha Tothong. Kengchakaj was a 2023-2024 CultureHub artist in residence, New Museum’s Y10 NEW INC member, Eyebeam Democracy Machine Fellow, and Babycastles artist in residence, and he participated in Nusasonic’s Common Tonalities project. His projects have received development funds from Queens Council on the Arts, City Artist Corps, Rhizome micro-grant, and Processing Foundation.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.