Composer CONSTANCE DEMBY passed peacefully in 2021 at age 81. She was an original character, a fun-loving free spirit who emerged out of the creative upheaval of the 1960s as a "sound sculptor" of resonant steel instruments, and member of an anarchic hippie musical group from Maine. After the group disbanded in the mid-1970s, she was drawn to the spiritual path, studied yoga, made the pilgrimage to India, and began to compose devotional music.
Back in the U.S., she settled in Northern California, started her own cassette label, and pursued a recording career armed with a modest musical education enhanced by great intuitive intensity. She was gifted with a profound talent for melody and a lavish gift for orchestration that served her well. From her earliest recordings she aimed to create what she called "sacred space music" — at first with acoustic instruments, later with electronic synthesizers and studio tools. She was one of the earliest adopters of electronic sampling keyboards, which gave her access to the full spectrum of orchestral instruments she employed in her choral symphonies.
On this transmission of Hearts of Space, a Constance Demby posthumous retrospective, on a program called SANCTUM SANCTORUM.
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I felt a great disturbance in The Force when reading about Contance Demby's passing...
Her magnificent accomplishments will be remembered.
Posted by: EricW | 16 May 2021 at 07:01 AM
I first listened to her music beginning in the very early nineteen nighties and ever since, I still listen. The first discovery was from the album Set Free being played on the late night Echoes Radio Program on NPR here in Southern California. The music will always be ethereal and a eternal journey.
Posted by: AGH | 19 May 2021 at 09:23 PM