Stuart Dempster: Sound Massage Parlour

Artist: Stuart Dempster (Seattle)

Date: October 2, 3 and 5, 2010

Admission: $10/$8 (members, students and seniors)

With didjieridu and trombone, Dempster led participants in creating beautiful, meditative, silly, spiritual and transcendental soundscapes as a form of "healing music." Dempster performed four healing sessions over three days, which included both a general atmosphere of healing sound as well as personalized "treatments" for any chronic problems participants had.

Stuart Dempster performing at Open Space, 2010

His work was equally appealing and appalling, and relied upond the sounds the participants made to inform the performers sounds and vice versa; Stuart believes that healing is at its best when it is both humorous and serious, both he recognizes as being therapeutic. These sessions had a larger than expected audience, which further grew larger as the first hand accounts for the experience entered the local healing community, turning small groups into crowds.

One of the world’s foremost trombonists and didjeriduists, ‘sound gatherer’ Stuart
 Dempster soothes aches, pains, and psychic sores with his meditative and playful Sound 
Massage Parlor.

Over 50 performances of Sound Massage Parlor were presented in Seattle and at New Music 
America Houston during the premier. Designed for audiences of 10-15, the experience is
highly personal. One of the many intrigues is how the sounds the participants make influence
the performer sounds and vice versa, therefore heightening and assisting in healing inside
and out. The more collective the participation, the richer the experience! The titles of his
compositions (Acuhosery, Aura Fluff, Didjeriatsu, and Sonic Facial) convey the idea. Aura Fluff and Didjeriatsu, in particular, provide a surprisingly deep massage.