EXTENDED BIO - As a recording artist and pioneer in her field, Constance Demby is an internationally known innovator of sound creations; sounds you'd swear you never heard before. Yet, somewhere in some dim memory, there is a faint memory echo - rich and compelling - calling up archetypal experiences which access the deeper, more profound levels of the mind-body-spirit/. Over the years she has mastered matching an emotion to its complementary tonal resonation, producing albums that consistently deliver powerfully cathartic and healing experiences to the listener.


 

An irrepressible personality with an infectious joie de vivre, Constance Demby is also a sincere spiritual seeker. Beginning classical studies at age 8, her first public performance was at age 12. Alongside music, her artistic spirit led her to also master several other art forms, painting, sculpture, and multi media. It was her work as a sculptor that led her to new dimensions of sound. As she was torching a sheet of metal, it roared thunderously, and thus was born the Sonic Steel Instruments: the Whale Sail and the Space Bass, enormous bowed instruments with deep, primordial, archetypal resonances.An original design, her Sonic Steel Instruments have been recorded by Lucas Skywalker Studios for use in their filmscores, and also filmed by Discovery Channel at Gaudi's Parc Guell for inclusion in a special entitled "The Power of Music."

 As an innovator in the world of sound, Demby taught herself a number of ethnic instruments (tamboura, harpeleck, hammmered dulcimer, ch'ung, gamelan) and found ways to use them inventively. She cofounded a unique multimedia group, Central Maine Power Sound &Light, which toured the East Coast from 1971 to 1976 with their "Space Mass" program and other groundbreaking light/sound and planetarium shows.In the late 1970s, Demby began to investigate the spiritual life by following a discipline that was focused on the inner light and the inner sound, or Surat Shabd Yoga. She found a special affinity for the hammered dulcimer and discovered that her "prayers would turn into song." These devotional songs formed the basis of her first album, Skies Above Skies.

In 1980, Demby, a fifth generation Californian, returned to Marin County north of San Francisco, where she received a warm reception and played concerts to overflow audiences. Here, she founded her own record company, Sound Currents, and released Sunborne, an ambitious five-part tone poem that featured her Sonic Steel instruments, world percussion, synthesizers, hammered dulcimer, and vocals. In 1982, responding to audience requests for more hammered dulcimer, she produced Sacred Space Music, an extended chamber concerto featuring Demby's unique style and dazzling virtuosity on this ancient instrument.


The mid-eighties brought changes in recording technology with the advent of digitally sampled sounds; Demby embraced this electronic revolution to compose contemporary classical space music using a full range of symphonic instruments, pipe organ, and choral voices. Tapping into her spiritual guidance, she brought through Novus Magnificat -Through the Stargate, the album that many call the most important New Age recording of all time. This album, released in 1986, was one of the first releases on the Hearts of Space record label, and the one that received the most honors and comparisons to Classical Composers.

 Since that time, Demby's primary instrument has become the symphony orchestra. The Kurzweil digital samplers, with their advanced technology and ability to portray all the colors of the orchestra, have become her keyboards of choice. Other albums include her "best of" compilation album Light of this World, with excerpts from ten years of music, the celebratory Set Free, with it's variety of atmospheres, and Aeterna, the emotionally cathartic sequel to "Novus Magnificat," dedicated to the healing of the heart. Recent albums include the ambient meditative album Faces of the Christ, a score from the video of the same name, and Attunement, a recording of a live concert in December of 1999, which includes a long selection on the Space Bass. Her latest album, released in July of 2001, is Sanctum Sanctuorum, sublime, symphonic sacred music with gregorian chant and ambient atmospheres.

National and international tours include Tokyo, where a professional DVD, video and album, Constance Demby - Live in Tokyo was created at her summer solstice concert.  In live concert, Constance presents a range of sonic environments, accompanied by her penetrating voice: the cosmic-electronic-symphonic orchestra performed on digital sampling synthesizers; the wooden hammer dulcimer with over 100 strings; and the Sonic Steel Space Bass, which invariably puts audiences into altered states.