Constance Demby
| Constance Demby | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Constance Mary Demby |
| Born | May 9, 1939 Oakland, California, U.S. |
| Genres | Ambient, space, new age |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, painter, sculptor, multimedia producer |
| Instruments | Piano, hammered dulcimer, synthesizer |
| Years active | 1966–present |
| Associated acts | Robert Rutman, Dorothy Carter |
Constance "Connie" Demby is singer, experimental musical instrument inventor, painter, sculptor, and multi-media producer. Her work falls into several categories, including ambient or space music. She is considered a pioneer in new age music best known for her album Novus Magnificat.
Constance Mary Demby was born in Oakland, California on May 9, 1939. She started playing classical piano at age 8 and by age 12 was performing concertos. Her family moved to Connecticut and Demby went on to found a jazz ensemble in high school, where she developed her skills as a improviser, and later became a multi-instrumentalist, taking up voice, hammered dulcimer, koto, ch'eng, harpeleck, tamboura, and later the synthesizer and her own handmade instruments.
Demby studied sculpture and painting at the University of Michigan, but interrupted this formal education In 1960 when she moved to New York's Greenwich Village. She continued to work as a musician and sculptor, combining these disciplines with her first sheet metal sound sculptures built in 1966. She had been torching a sheet of metal in her sculptural practice when she noticed the low tones and unusual sounds that the vibrating metal produced, which subsequently led to the development of her first handmade instruments. In 1967 Demby used these sculptures in a series of al happening-style events at the Charles Street multimedia gallery A Fly Can't Bird But a Bird Can Fly, owned by Robert Rutman. In one piece called "The Thing", Rutman wore a white cardboard box and banged on Demby's sheet metal creation with "a rock in a sock." In another piece entitled "Space Mass", Rutman projected film upon a piece of curved sheet metal onto which Demby had welded several steel rods that she played as a percussion instrument. Rutman later remarked, "We thought it would sound good as a xylophone, but it didn't."
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