Bio
Minister NEDELKA F. PRESCOD is a singer-songwriter and arranger, an educator, licensed preacher and organizational consultant. She also expresses her artistry through the meditative practice of creating beaded jewelry.
A multi-genre vocalist, Min. Prescod released three independent recording projects: “Manifest” (2008), “The Light” (2018) and “The Un-Silenced Voice” (2020) and has performed in venues and festivals around the world, such as Joe’s Pub in New York City, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Panama Jazz Festival, the Muka Music Center in Shanghai and the Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy. She is the founder and founding director of New England Conservatory’s original iterations of the “African Heritage Ensemble,” “R&B Ensemble” and “Contemporary Gospel Ensemble.” Min. Prescod has been recognized for her artistry and contributions to community through music-making, specifically being awarded grants from The Boston Foundation and Brooklyn Arts Council, among others.
Relating with Maya Angelou’s testimony of becoming mute as a trauma response, Min. Prescod’s organic journey through healing her own voice crystallized into her consultancy for vocal coaching and advocacy. Min. Prescod’s rich and impeccable background in music informs her work as a creative healing artist. An advocate for the healing power of music, Min. Prescod offers individual and group vocal coaching as a modality for encouraging performance excellence, and as support for strengthening the human voice to develop personal and communal advocacy. Min. Prescod’s creative abilities prolifically express themself through a range of curated experiences. Always with a heart for building and supporting well-healed and healthful communities, Min. Prescod offers individual and community music experiences that include sacred and secular choral singing, community songwriting sessions, creative expression programs, an exciting range of hands-on children and youth-centric classes, beginner’s piano and theory classes for all ages, Women-centric healing sessions, academic and ecclesial residencies, workshops and masterclasses. As a licensed preacher, Min. Prescod uses her voice and background in education to prioritize the need for tending to the human voice and spirit as a pathway to communal healing and liberation.
A sought after teacher and coach, Min. Prescod has over 30 years of professional experience working in a range of educational settings. She began her teaching journey as a teenager volunteering in a summer program at St. Edmund's Church in Brooklyn working with alternately abled young people. For nearly two decades, Min. Prescod taught through the NYC Department of Education as a full time music educator and teaching artist, then transitioning into higher education, serving on faculty at New England Conservatory and Berklee College of Music (Boston, MA).
In 2019 Min. Prescod created “The Un-Silenced Voice Project” to uncover and empower feminine and silenced voices (actual, artistic and communal) retracted by trauma and create pathways for healing through music, personal testimony and community dialogue. Min. Prescod has served as a consultant at New England Conservatory and at Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School/YDS where she spearheaded "The Sound of Andover Newton" project, an endeavor to expand and support the school’s music in worship experience. While at YDS Min. Prescod served as choir director of the Yale Black Seminarians Gospel Choir and as a student liaison between the Office of Belonging and the school community at large.
Min. Prescod holds a BS and MA in Music Education from New York University and CUNY Brooklyn College, respectively; an MM in Contemporary Improvisation (Contemporary Musical Arts) from New England Conservatory; and an MDiv from Yale Divinity School. Min. Prescod is a co-producer of the docu-series, “Black & Panamañian” (YouTube), and was a member and lead vocalist with the Abyssinian Baptist Church’s (NYC) music ministry, a member of the church’s ministerial team where she was bestowed a license to preach, served as interim servant leader for the Abyssinian Institute of Christian Education and was a member of the Abyssinian Food Pantry Ministry.
Minister Prescod’s love of creating beaded jewelry has evolved into “Innermost Beading by Nedelka” - her pop up boutique of custom designed pieces created with human-made, recycled and organic materials curated into wearable art. In conversation with her customers, each piece is constructed with prayers for deep inner healing, a mindfulness of the nature and healing power of colors, and with careful attention to bead count and the divine symbolism of numeric values.