The Bjorgan

This pack is a senior project for the school I go to, but the idea is a couple years in the making. The school that I go to owns some land that was donated to us, and on that land sits a really beautiful Stave Church that was built by hand by the previous owner and her husband, with interior hand-painted frescos by the owner herself. Her story is marvelous, however in an effort to bring some money to that campus, I highly encourage you to purchase her book “Faith Builds a Chapel; the story of an adventure in craftmanship” on Amazon, from our campus, or rent it for free on Archive.org.

I spent a summer working on this campus (as well as spending many weekends up there for retreats) and fell in love with the sound of this instrument, but knew I was running out of time. The instrument has not been maintained incredibly well (as you will hear when playing it), but it was still playable, which means it was still archiveable.

I recorded the instrument in a normal X/Y setup as well as in surround sound using an ambisonic microphone, which means there’s three versions of the instrument: one with just those X/Y mics, one as a surround front, and one as a surround back. The UI is labelled accordingly. I hope this instrument can find new life outside of the building, and I hope I’ve done it a service by capturing it and sharing it with you all.