A Closer Listen
Photography by Alexia Webster, courtesy the label (Outside Time).
Zosha Warpeha and Mariel Terán are each deep-dive explorers of instruments. As improvisers and composers, they’ve developed unique voices in contemporary instrumental music: Warpeha’s recent record, silver dawn, was one of my favorites of last year, and Terán’s work has been featured in international settings like the MATA Festival in New York. Emerging from a variety of traditions, their work charts new courses in contemporary music. The following interview was realized by email, mediated by the label, and minimally formatted and edited for consistency and clarity.
David Murrieta Flores (ACL): Hello, Zosha and Mariel! Could you please talk about how you came to choose your main instruments? How would you describe your relationships to them?
Zosha Warpeha (Z): I was attracted to the Hardanger fiddle several years ago when I heard a record by Nils Økland, a prominent contemporary Hardanger fiddler in Norway. I was entranced by the sound of the instrument – the resonance and rawness of the sound, a tactility that moved me quite deeply. I’ve developed an extremely personal relationship to my instrument since then – not necessarily residing within the tradition, but connected to the physicality of the fiddle and the ways it wishes to exist in acoustic spaces. I began as a violinist, but the Hardanger d’amore is now the instrument that truly feels like an extension of my voice.
Mariel Terán (M): My relationship with Andean wind instruments began more than 10 years ago, first through traditional Andean music and then through contemporary music, which these instruments are so perfect for. They have a variety of measures, materials, forms, sound patterns, and so much to explore in their nature. So, I would describe my relationship to them as very close. I investigate them: their heritage, their techniques and more. I feel fascinated by them because there are no written rules around them, just oral tradition involving their music. There is so much to explore about their sound potential.
Photography by Alexia Webster, courtesy the label (Outside Time).
ACL: Could you please talk about how you view yourselves in relation to the musical traditions you belong to?
M: In my country, I do not belong to any ethnic group, but my ancestors were born in the Andean region of Bolivia, which makes me very close to the Aymara tradition. I live close to that area, in La Paz, a city 3,600 meters above sea level.
I was fortunate to study at a school where I could learn about traditional Andean music, and later join an ensemble that played these instruments.
I see myself as someone that might always have a blind spot regarding traditional music, since people learn it at a very young age and grow up listening to it. But because of the close distance with the Andean region, I decided to make the most of it. I play these instruments, respect the traditions where they come from, and also see them as what they are: instruments to study as any other.
Z: I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I belong to the Nordic folk music tradition. I am not Norwegian by descent, even though one may assume so because I grew up in Minnesota and play hardingfele! I have spent significant time studying the Hardanger fiddle tradition, including a couple years in Norway, but very rarely do I perform traditional music. Instead, I am informed by the aural and physical transmission processes in the tradition, with my own music and improvisations guided by embodied, tacit knowledge. I think it was a bit by accident that my sound developed to reflect the folk tradition; I moved to Norway to pay my respects to the history of the instrument, feeling like it wasn’t mine to take from. It was through that immersion in the folk music and dance that I absorbed traditional techniques, feelings of time and momentum, and senses of intonation.
ACL: In the liner notes of your debut album as a duo, Orbweaver, there’s a very interesting naturalist analogy, which assimilates musical development to animal craft. Yet a common Western perspective is that nature has no history – culture is the opposite of nature. How do you relate to this standpoint? What would you say Orbweaver is doing with the natural world?
Photography by Alexia Webster, courtesy the label (Outside Time).
Z: I don’t agree with the assertion that nature has no history, or that culture is the opposite of nature. Everywhere you look in nature, you see echoes of time – erosion on a riverbank, rings of a tree, evolution of organisms over millennia. And when you look at the oldest folk traditions, whether it be music, visual art, weaving, dance, you see direct references to the natural world. Bird calls woven into songs, animals painted onto vessels, dances that are meant to call the rain.
Orbweaver doesn’t seek to do anything with the natural world. The sounds that we create together are inspired by our lived experiences, tradition, storytelling… Really, more than anything, this album is about relating to one another sonically. But we also can’t ignore the feelings of landscape and natural organisms in the resulting music – and so in comes the naming process, the question of what we hear upon listening back to the recordings. It’s always interesting to listen back and hear the sounds of a small bird or spider, even though my mind was clear of that imagery while playing.
M: I guess that there is something that relates the cultures where our instruments come from, and it is how music and weaving is made… Also, I believe that this structure of weaving was taken from nature. Zosha and I did not dwell on the chemistry between our instruments, but I understand that string and woodwind instruments always found their way through history.
We decided to name the album Orbweaver because we realize that our way of improvisation could be described as weaving, using the sounds as threads, revealing relationships.
Photography by Alexia Webster, courtesy the label (Outside Time).
ACL: What does the conventional dichotomy of tradition/modernity represent to you? Does it have any bearing on your art? If so, how?
M: Our instruments have a strong heritage and history. They represent traditions and will always be associated with those from the moment you see them. Zosha and I have experience with contemporary music and improvisation, and we use the complex sounds of our instruments to create a language.
I think that the traditions of our instruments which we studied have definitely influenced our way of playing and relating, even the way we respond to sound. But there is also this strong desire to push music to other places, use our influences freely and create an identity of what is happening among our instruments, which also depends on the time we are living in as musicians.
Z: The perceived dichotomy of tradition and modernity is a never-ending frustration in my artistic life. I don’t believe in this dichotomy within the music that I make; the sounds that emerge in my practice are purely an expression of love for the instrument I play, the people I play with, the rooms I play within. Does it matter if it sounds traditional or modern? It’s music, made today by people living in modern times, who happen to play some pretty old instruments and pay respect to the generations that played those instruments before.
ACL: What was your collaboration process like?
Z: Orbweaver is a collection of improvisations. We had the chance to play with one another a few times prior to recording, and in the moment of the session it was quite organic to play. There was very rarely a verbalized idea for a track, other than maybe mentioning to each other a texture that the other plays and how it would be an inspiring beginning. It was actually quite amazing to feel the form of each piece fall into place so effortlessly!
M: We did not plan our recording session step by step, or even in tracks.
We met in 2023 and had the incredible opportunity of playing together and get to know our music personalities.
One year after, we met again and decided to reconvene and improvise. We had some time to warm up and listen to each other again, our ways changed. One year after, we had become different people.
We went through the session reacting to the sounds we were hearing and choosing among my instruments freely to combine them and avoid using the same materials.
ACL: What pieces of folklore inform Orbweaver? Do you conceive of folklore as necessarily tied to tradition, or is its place in culture possibly distinct from it?
Z: I wouldn’t say that any specific pieces of folklore inform this album. Instead, you might say that the album is inspired by two distinct aural traditions; not the literal stories or songs, but the process and beauty of the aural transmission cycle over many generations.
Folklore in itself is a tradition, aurally passed from one generation to another. I believe it’s inseparable from the rest of a culture’s folk traditions, whether musical or visual. A song is passed from teacher to student, parent to child, friend to friend in the same way that a story is — it is freely given as a framework, something that is then taken by the recipient to be made their own and passed on in the same way. That being said, our music is created from abstractions of this process, deconstructions that allow it to float freely away, unharnessed from these traditions.
M: In my case, I avoid using melodies and patterns from traditional Andean music. I try to show the sound of the instruments, but not the traditional music, since this music is usually played during rituals or specific seasons of the year, and if I did use them, I do not only think it is disrespectful, but also that the music loses its meaning and it is distorted.
ACL: Thank you so much for your time, Zosha and Mariel. Is there anything you’d like to add or tell our readers before we close the interview up?
M: My instruments may be preconceived in some ways because of how they are known. They carry so much history, and I try to pull them from the past into the present because of how they can create new languages and relate to other instruments from other traditions. Although it was unintentional, Zosha and I had the same vision about the past, present, and future of our music, ways of playing and respect for our heritage. Luckily, we could meet and relate through our ears and sound sensibility to create orbs around us.
Sat May 10 00:01:35 GMT 2025