Thirty years ago, Anna Dembska and Joan Harkness met in New York City as a result of a phone call — to a wrong number. Their subsequent collaborations include the first production of Anna’s chamber opera The Singing Bridge, and their theatrical song recital Pedestrian and Holy: Acts of American Music.
Like many musicians, Anna and Joan teach as well as perform. In their students and audiences alike, they perceived a desire for friendly, mindful, and imaginative approaches to achieve deep musicianship — especially for those just beginning their studies. They founded Flying Leap Music in 1999 hoping to fulfill these earnest wishes.
Joan (now known as Mahalia LoMele) is a pianist and teacher. A Juilliard School graduate, she pursued a freelance career in New York City, working with singers, instrumentalists, theatrical productions, churches, and teaching piano to adults and children.
In 2003 she left the city to carve out a very different life with her partner, artist Bachrun LoMele, in the California Sierra Nevada foothills. The quiet forest environment of her home has led her to explorations of sound and the potential of deeper meanings within music. Her current projects include sound-making from the strings of the piano using plumbing hardware and percussion mallets, creative writing, and studies of Islamic geometric patterns. African dance, which she began studying in New York, continues to be a centering expression of the creativity of the body.
Anna Dembska has been creating and performing musical events for over 40 years, from experimental music theater and concert music to sound installations and free improvisation. As a voice teacher and choral director, her passion is to encourage all people to enjoy and expand the range and possibilities of their voices, musical expression, and listening ears.
After many years of splitting her time between New York City and Maine, she moved to Maine full time in 2009, where she encountered tai chi, which has sublimely transformed her artistic and daily life. Her most recent work, originating in the pandemic to find a kind of music that could be sung together on Zoom from different locations, is inspired by tai chi’s lessons of patience, responsiveness, quiescence within movement, and openness to unexpected possibilities.