The young musician Mara Prună first captured the hearts of the Romanian public with her successful run in the Romania’s Got Talent finals. Since then, she has become a defining name among the promising Romanian artists who chose to further their craft and musical careers in London. On Sunday, June 14, 2026, she returned to the spotlight with a performance tailored specifically for the opening of the SOGEUM ’26 painting exhibition.
Hosted at the Merton Park Baptist Church, SOGEUM ’26 brought together the works of visual artists Lisa Choi Mitchell and Mehdi Khabiri. Their paintings didn’t just blend organically with one another, merging two distinct styles, but they also set the stage for a vibrant weekend of arts. The exhibition was framed by a tapestry of creative activities—from fabric and face painting to live concerts, including a beautiful Saturday recital by pianist Rachel Howie and violinist Hannah Howie.
But the beating heart of Sunday’s musical showcase was Mara Prună. A graduate of The Purcell School for Young Musicians and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama’s composition department, she crafted an original performance deeply rooted in the emotion, artistic search, and working styles of the two painters. Right from the start, the fresh, live sonorities of her music wrapped around an electronic background, creating unexpected echoes.
The visual associations were striking: the blue wings and green petals of the musician’s capes seemed to flutter in rhythm with the butterflies and flowers on the canvas. Her blue-tinted hair waved against the backdrop of the painted, azure forests. The entire show felt like emerging from a cocoon—much like the fragile human silhouette hidden within a painted shell somewhere on the gallery wall.
The creative process behind this 30-minute piece for voice, piano, and electronics, titled All At Once, started with an unusual kind of freedom. “When someone commissions work from a composer” Mara noted in the concert leaflet, “there’s almost always some kind of a brief. This was not the case with Lisa and Mehdi. In fact, when I interviewed them individually to get a sense of what kind of music they’d like me to write to respond to their works, they both said the magic words: “you can do whatever you want!”… which, ironically, is probably the most difficult brief I could have received; difficult, but incredibly rewarding.”
Honored by their trust, she shaped a journey that began as a simple melody improvised by a waterfall. Throughout the performance, she guided that melody from distant voices drifting in an electronic haze, through raw voice and piano improvisation, all the way to a fully formed song. For Mara, improvisation and composition are simply different points on the same creative spectrum. Embracing the pendulum swing between monotony and spontaneity, she chose not to rehearse the piece in full before the premiere, nor did she map out the improvisational sections. “Creation is often a pendulum between tedium and spontaneity. I think both are valuable and none could exist without the other… but the spontaneity is admittedly much more fun, and I hope we can enjoy it together”, she shared with a public that was experiencing the music for the very first time, right alongside her.
Wind on my wing
Flail as I sing
Farewell, old self
Flowerbed’s been made
Am I still the same?
Am I still the same?
Then and now dont know how
New selves, old selves
Low and high
I don’t know why
Begin and end, all of once
Begin and end, all of once.
Through her song, Mara Prună voiced a hypnotic leitmotif that truly managed to capture everything, all at once.
Photos by Paul Buciuta – June 14, 2026, Merton Park Baptist Church, London.
