Constance Demby

Constance Demby stands among the rare New Age figures whose output and personal outlook alike reflect an unwavering commitment to artistic, deeply emotive works. Classical training defined her childhood, yet her creative drive also led her to painting and sculpture at the University of Michigan. Sculpting in particular expanded her sonic palette when the explosive roar of a metal sheet under a torch prompted the invention of the Sonic Steel Instruments—the Whale Sail and the Space Bass—vast bowed creations valued for their primordial resonances.

Explorations of numerous ethnic instruments followed, each deployed in unexpected configurations. With fellow artists she launched the multimedia ensemble Central Maine Power Sound & Light, whose East Coast tours from 1971 to 1976 featured the “Space Mass” program alongside other pioneering light-and-sound and planetarium presentations.

In the late 1970s Demby adopted the Surat Shabd Yoga discipline, directing attention to inner light and inner sound. The hammered dulcimer became her chosen vehicle, converting prayer into melody; those devotional pieces supplied the material for her debut album, Skies Above Skies.

A fifth-generation Californian, Demby settled back in Marin County north of San Francisco in 1980, where overflow crowds greeted her concerts. She established the Sound Currents label there and issued Sunborne, a large-scale five-part tone poem scored for her Sonic Steel instruments, world percussion, synthesizers, hammered dulcimer, and voice.

Digital sampling reshaped recording practice in the mid-1980s; Demby adopted the new tools to assemble contemporary space music scored for full symphonic forces, pipe organ, and choral textures. Drawing on spiritual guidance, she assembled Novus Magnificat track by track—an album many regard as the defining New Age release—which appeared in 1986 among the first titles on Hearts of Space. Later Hearts of Space recordings include the devotional Sacred Space Music, the celebratory Set Free, and Aeterna, the cathartic successor to Novus Magnificat.

Demby has described the reach and effect of her work in these terms: “Novus Magnificat reached 'up and out' to catch a galactic beam through space. Aeterna is down and into the heart, here and now. Now our society is in the thick of it, and if people do not handle their feelings, we are in trouble. My music is emotional, but it is always redemptive. If my music stirs things up and takes you down into your feelings, it will then transmute, take you up and out again and redeem. If the listener approaches music with 'active listening,' or with full absorption, and if the music has spiritual commitment and depth, then music can blow your mind. It will make you weep. And you will wonder breathlessly,'God, what was that? It did something to me!'”

After issuing several private-label projects, she relocated in 2000 from Southern California to Barcelona, Spain, drawn by the city’s openness to music and the arts.