Constance Demby

Constance Mary Demby (née Eggers; May 9, 1939 – March 20, 2021) was an American musician, composer, painter, sculptor, and multimedia producer.

[3] After the family moved to Connecticut, Demby began classical piano lessons at age eight, and soon became confident enough to perform solo and in a group.

She continued with her music studies, during which Demby also took to painting and sculpture and received an "Excellence in Art" award for her work from Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

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."

Demby conceived a multimedia environmental experience called Space Mass, which featured a 24-foot altar, temples, and sculptures that acted as moving screens to project abstract films.

While Rutman went on to pursue directions in contemporary classical and industrial music with the sheet metal instruments that they had created, Demby headed down a quieter path.

She studied yoga with Ajaib Singh and, in 1977, co-formed the Gandharva Performing Arts Company, a duo featuring the flute, tabla and dulcimer with Robert Bennett.

She founded the record label Sound Currents to release her second album, Sunborne (1980), inspired by the Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean, a 20th century work by occultist Maurice Doreal.

In 2000, Demby left California for Spain, eventually settling in Sitges near Barcelona, where she recorded Sanctum Sanctuorum (2001), a reworked version of Faces of the Christ (2000) with added keyboard parts and choral and Gregorian chant.

In addition to her studio albums, Demby is best known for creating two experimental musical instruments: the Whale Sail and the Sonic Steel Space Bass.