Norman Lowrey

Norman Eugene Lowrey (b.1944, Midland, Michigan) is a composer, mask-maker, performance/sound/video artist, and music educator. He studied composition privately with Samuel Jones in 1964-65, earned a Bachelor of Music from Texas Christian University in 1967, and completed his formal music education at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester New York. He received an M.M. in theory (1970), and a PhD in composition in 1974. Lowrey is also well-known as an associate of the American composer Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016).

Lowrey spent many years as a professor of music, specializing in composition and theory. He was a composer in residence and Assistant Professor of Music at California State University at San Diego from 1971 to 1972, Instructor of Humanities at Stephens College (Columbia, Missouri) in 1972 to 1976, and Professor of Music at Drew University (Madison, New Jersey) from 1977 to 2016, where he taught composition and theory, along with analog and digital electronic composition. He also instructed students in environmentally-based composition.[1][2]

Often specializing in lyric and poetical settings, his orchestral works include a setting of Dylan Thomas' “A Child's Christmas in Wales” for narrator and Orchestral and a setting of 'Breaking Open,' a poem by Muriel Rukeyser for Women's Chorus and Orchestra.[3] He has also expanded his work into multimedia, including the composition “Orchestrophonia for Mechanical Musical Instruments and Orchestra,”[4][5][6] a commissioned collaboration with the Colonial Symphony and the Morris Museum's Murtogh D. Guinness Collection of Mechanical Musical Instruments and Automata.[7]

Lowrey has also worked in sculpture. He is the originator of 'Singing Masks' and creates musical automata.[8] The masks, fabricated with ceramic, carved wood, and leather represent archetypal animistic characters based on mythical and quasi-mythical entities.[9] Many of the masks and automata use electro-acoustic sound sources, often developed by Lowrey. The masks are featured in site-specific rituals and have been exhibited and performed in such diverse locations as Plan B SITE Santa Fe in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Roulette[10] and Lincoln Center in New York City, The Deep Listening Space in Kingston, New York, The New Jersey State Museum in Trenton, and at a site of pictograph caves outside Billings, Montana.[11]

As an outgrowth of his performances with Singing Masks, he collaborated with Cynthia Poten, previously the Delaware Riverkeeper, on a project funded by a grant from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation in the spring of 1994 called 'River Sounding.' This included people participating in listening sessions along the 350 mile length of the Delaware River, and culminating in an exhibit with performances at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia.

He has created collaborative virtual performances online in the Second Life platform with the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse, an international virtual collaborative ensemble, using animated versions of his Singing Masks. A recording of one of his compositions for the group was included in an article published by MIT Press Leonardo Music Journal.[12]

His work with Pauline Oliveros included assisting in the certification training program of her Deep Listening practice, being a member of the Board of Directors of the Pauline Oliveros Foundation, which then became the Deep Listening Institute, and collaborative performances with his masks. He has continued her methodology of Deep Listening for the program now located at the Center for Deep Listening of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and at Deep Listening Retreats in Sweden, California, and New York State. A summary of his experiences and work with Oliveros and Deep Listening appears in the book "Anthology of Essays on Deep Listening."[13][14]

His most recent work has included performances in the CRAIVE Lab at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, New York) and as a video/sound artist, he received a commission in 2016 to create an installation piece in the Smithsonian's Freer|Sackler Galleries of Asian Art for an exhibit of 2500-year-old Chinese Bells.[15][16]