There\u2019s an old marble theater inside a towering art deco skyscraper in Downtown Brooklyn. Architecture firm McKim, Mead & White designed the building not long after it built Penn Station. And though the room was once the ceremonial headquarters of the Benevolent & Protective Order of the Elks, its gaudy ornamentations have begun to peel and crumble over time.<\/p>\n
Even in its faded glory, the theater’s high-arched ceilings make for remarkable acoustics. That’s why Zosha Warpeha, a 31-year-old fiddler raised on a rural Minnesota maple syrup farm, decided to record an album there.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aI think of the room as a second instrument,\u201d Warpeha said in a recent interview at theater, which is now run as an arts venue by the nonprofit ISSUE Project Room<\/a>. \u201cI think of it as an active performer and collaborator.\u201d<\/p>\n Warpeha walked softly through the sprawling space in a flowing linen shirt and wide-legged pants. She was quiet but emanated a restless excitement to discuss her music \u2014 and the enigmatic instrument she plays.<\/p>\n Warpeha composes for the hardanger d\u2019amore, a violin-like instrument related to the traditional Norwegian hardanger fiddle. It has five top strings and five sympathetic strings that resonate underneath.<\/p>\n Zosha Warpeha and her hardanger d’amore fiddle<\/p>\n Zach Gross<\/p>\n Warpeha moved to New York in 2013 to study jazz violin at the New School. But, she said, she struggled to find her place in the jazz scene, and craved a musical form that was more expansive and improvisational.<\/p>\n In her search for inspiration she became obsessed with YouTube videos<\/a> of Norwegian hardanger folk fiddlers. When she learned one of her New School teachers had one, she asked to play it. She said something clicked for her.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really felt like the sound was coming from myself and my core rather than my fingers,\u201d she said. \u201cThat was just really powerful to experience and I had to go deeper.\u201d<\/p>\n With the help of a grant, Warpeha eventually got her hands on her own hardanger d\u2019amore, custom-made by the renowned Norwegian fiddle-maker Salve H\u00e5kedal. She said she felt it was important to truly immerse herself in the Norwegian folk tradition before writing in a more contemporary space, and moved to Oslo for two years to study hardanger fiddle on a Fulbright scholarship.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very difficult. The songs were difficult. The process of learning was hard,\u201d Warpeha said. \u201cBut I just embraced it. And I think I was able to go so much deeper with that, like, beginner’s mind.\u201d<\/p>\n The hardanger and hardanger d\u2019amore are played widely in folk music circles. The droning sound created by the instruments\u2019 resonant strings produces a unique and haunting quality \u2014 the hardanger fiddle features prominently in the \u201cLord of the Rings\u201d soundtracks.<\/p>\n But what Warpeha is doing now with the hardanger d\u2019amore is much more experimental.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s taken it to a much more extreme direction in terms of the sustained drone space that she’s exploring,\u201d said Daniel Trueman, a master fiddler who chairs Princeton University’s music department.<\/p>\n Trueman helped develop the first hardanger d\u2019amore 15 years ago with H\u00e5kedal. Trueman wanted a five-stringed instrument with a longer neck and larger body that maintained the signature drone sound of the hardanger fiddle, but could more easily slot into American and Irish folk groups.<\/p>\n Since then, the hardanger d\u2019amore’s popularity has exploded \u2014 the waiting list for a handmade H\u00e5kedal fiddle is about seven years. That demand is being driven by players like Warpeha.<\/p>\n Warpeha \u201cis revealing a beautiful side to the instrument that I\u2019m very excited about,\u201d Trueman said. \u201cI’m very proud of it, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n Warpeha\u2019s first album, \u201csilver dawn<\/a>,\u201d a solo record on the hardanger d\u2019amore, contains some elements of traditional folk music. Its 13 tracks are not standard verse-chorus-bridge songs, but there are recognizable chord structures and progressions.<\/p>\n Warpeha\u2019s new album, \u201cI grow accustomed to the dark<\/a>,\u201d represents an evolution and a departure. It features just two long tracks, which were recorded live at ISSUE Project Room.<\/p>\n Over the 20 minutes of the first piece, \u201cfilament,\u201d Warpeha slowly builds chords that clash against each other and bounce around the room before coming back together. Sometimes she sings in a low hum, which intermingles with the vibrating tenor of the strings. It almost sounds like she\u2019s leading a s\u00e9ance.<\/p>\n Zosha Warpeha at ISSUE Project Room<\/p>\n Zach Gross<\/p>\n Warpeha describes her compositional style as \u201cmeditative,\u201d exploring not only the boundaries of resonance and dissonance, but positive and negative space, light and dark.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you play the hardanger fiddle, you have this little bit of reverberance, or little bit of a shimmer,\u201d she said. \u201cThe note goes on longer in a really subliminal way and there’s just more room for taking space.\u201d<\/p>\n Warpeha said that while writing the album she spent entire days just walking around the old theater with her fiddle, listening to how the notes echoed through the space. It was the dead of winter and she said the building\u2019s heating system made a lot of noise \u2014 so she\u2019d turn it off and bundle up in a puffy jacket.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aEvery acoustic space has its own sonic imprint, its own personality,\u201d she said. \u201cSo I was kind of searching for what is the core tone of the room, what’s really responding to me the loudest when I give something to it.\u201d<\/p>\n She eventually found the room had about five seconds of reverb. On \u201cI grow accustomed to the dark,\u201d Warpeha starts new notes as the old ones hang in the air. There are moments when it sounds like there are two or three players in the room alongside her.<\/p>\n The album is being well-received critically, with Pitchfork Contributing Editor Philip Sherburne calling it<\/a> \u201csevere\u201d and \u201cstrangely beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n But composing experimental music for the Norwegian fiddle is a tough way to earn a living in New York City. To supplement her income, Warpeha said, she often backs up folk and country groups.<\/p>\n