Norman Lowrey is a mask maker/composer, Chair of the Music Department at Drew University with Ph.D. from the Eastman School of Music. He is the originator of Singing Masks, which incorporate flutes, reeds, ratchets and other sounding devices. He has presented Singing Mask ceremony/performances at such locations as Plan B and SITE Santa Fe in Santa Fe New Mexico, Roulette and Lincoln Center in New York, and at the site of pictograph caves outside Billings, Montana.
Spirit Talk is a continuation of the two ceremony/performance pieces referred to above in its exploration of experiencing the intelligence and underlying spiritual essence of the non-human realm. Whereas the previous pieces approached this by way of dream, Spirit Talk focuses on glossolalia - the spirit language of all things. The accompanying soundscape consists of a rich layering of prior works, each of which contains multiple recordings of river sounds, birds, crickets, and other voices of nature. This CD includes both the original soundscape and a live recording of a presentation for EarthSounding at St. Stephen & the Incarnation Episcopal Church, Washington, D.C., April 24, 1999, with Comma (Thomas Bickley, Matthew Ross Davis, Joseph Zitt), Ronald Stok, and the Choir of St. Stephen & the Incarnation.
RiverSoundMind for Singing Masks & Electronics
on a Poem by Pauline Oliveros
Recorded live in concert, F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theater, Drew University, Madison, NJ , April 23, 2001. The accompanying soundscape here consists of recordings made a various sites on the Delaware River together with a transformed sounding of Pauline Oliveros' poem Humayun's Tomb, which is about the mind of sound. The text was processed using granular synthesis and "folded" into river sounds to make a somewhat human-sounding voice seem like another of the river's many complex voices. Various masks function as guides along this sonic journey into the intelligence of River and Sound itself.
CDR
The first of Lowrey's River Sounding Trilogy stemming from Delaware River Sounding project held in the summer and autumn of 1994. riverdream through us uses an accompanying soundscape of recordings made along, on, and in the Delaware River together with Lowrey's Singing/Listening Masks as guides to listen to and participate in the mind of the river. There are 7 "dreamings:" 1. Opening, 2. Flowing, 3. Riving, 4. Bottoming, 5. Verging, 6. Weaving (river/stars), and 7. Riverdreaming. This CD was recorded live at Ione's Dream Festival, at Deep Listening Space, Kingston, NY, October 25, 1997. It includes the participation of Pauline Oliveros on a variety of instruments and Tom Bickley on recorders.
In Parallel: Dreaming into Alternate Universes for Singing Masks & Electronics
with text by Fred Alan Wolf
Recorded in performance at Ione's 5th Annual Dream Festival, Deep Listening Space, Kingston, NY, October 14, 2000. Juxtaposing passages from theoretical physicist Fred Alan Wolf's Parallel Universes (Simon & Schuster, 1988) with recordings made over the years of a wide variety of things ranging from frogs in New Mexico to the soundscape at the corner of 46th and Broadway in NYC, In Parallel is a ceremony guided by the Singing Masks which invites the participants to use sound triggers to dream into alternate universes.
CDR
Three separate works stemming from the Delaware River Sounding Project which use recordings of the river made during those events. OIR al RIO (to Listen to the River is an overlay of excerpts made at each of the 7 River Soundng sites along the 350 mile length of the Delaware. from Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma is a setting of the Lotus Sutra for mixed chorus and river sounds, performed by the Drew University Chorale. A Vision of the Primordial Delaware, which includes Pauline Oliveros on accordion in a performance of riverdream through us at the Nutshell Art Center in Lake Huntington, NY, July 23, 1995, was created as a sound installation for a wall hanging by artist Peter Kinney.
Second of the River Sounding Trilogy, Spirit Dreams is a branch of riverdream through us, wherein the masks which function as guides for that ceremony (an other masks) tell their individual dream stories a a further way to enter the mind(s) of the non-human realm. This work is for recited texts (live and/or recorded), sampled sounds of the Delaware River environs initiated by a real-time complex-dynamic (fractal) computer interface program, and the singing masks, set in a context of ceremonial dream time participation by all present. This edition was recorded at Ione's Dream Festival with Ione narrating.
Recorded in performance at Ione's Sixth Annual Dream Festival, Deep Listening Space, Kingston, NY, October 6, 2001. The accompanying soundscape for DreamWeaving consists of recordings of over 50 dreams submitted to Ione's Dream Festival Dream Sack and to the Deep Listening Institute Deep Listening listserv, together with recordings made of birds in a woods in western New York state. The audience was invited to contribute dreams at any time during the live presentation. The Singing masks sound along with this tapestry of communal dreaming, guiding and translating the dreamscape into their language of ceremonial dreamtime.
CDR
In this collaboration with poet Robert Carnevale, Lowrey has extended the concept of listening to the language of the non-human realm to include crickets, cicadas, and katydids. This is an exploration of the sources of language and poetry in sound. It is a participatory ceremony that was premiered at Deep Listening Space in Kingston, NY on November 12, 1999 as part of the Deep Listening Institute Community Café series. This CD includes a live recording of Spirit Talk: Conversations with the Singing Masks presented at the same event.