Constance Demby
American multi-instrumentalist player and composer (1939-2021)
Constance Mary Demby (née Eggers; May 9, 1939 – March 20, 2021) was an American musician, composer, painter, sculptor, and multimedia producer. Her music included new age, ambient, and space music styles. She is best known for her 1986 album Novus Magnificat and her two experimental musical instruments, the sonic steel space bass and the whale sail.
Early life and education
Demby was born in Oakland, California, on May 9, 1939. 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. In addition to music, she also took to painting and sculpture and received an "Excellence in Art" award for her work from Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.
Demby studied sculpture and painting at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she received a Highby Award for excellence in art in 1960.
Career
In 1960, Demby quit her studies and moved to Greenwich Village in New York City. She continued to work as a musician and sculptor, combining these disciplines with her first sheet metal sound sculptures, built in 1966. She was 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.
“Constance Demby” enters the record as american multi-instrumentalist player and composer (1939-2021). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Constance, Demby and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1165381. VIAF identifies the subject as 87050621. The Library of Congress control number is n91120881. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1939, 2021, 1986 and 1960.
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This entry incorporates text from “Constance Demby” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.