Lotus

~A virtuosic cadre of performers who have roamed the freeways and backroads of the new and old acoustic caravan trail in search of a revolutionary ancient sound for modern times~

“There are Gypsy-jazz, bluegrass, Celtic, chamber-folk, jazz, rock, and even Indian influences, all distilled through a gifted group that has toured extensively on the jam-band circuit, but who at its best sounds unlike anyone else in that genre…this eclectic quartet has harvested a bountiful feast of new string-band music.”  -Greg Cahill, Strings Magazine, (national), Published Oct. 2009

Emerging from a long tradition of gypsy circus troubadours come a merry band of acoustic explorers~ Taarka, marrying the new millennial, sonic adventures of David Tiller (mandolin, tenor guitar, vocals), Enion Pelta-Tiller (five string violin, vocals), Troy Robey (bass, vocals), Ben Blecham and Dale Largent (percussion). While the four musicians have individually been spreading song and tune over the aural superhighway since the last century, their collaborative intersection marks a new era of Taarkan tunesmithing. Taarka's fourth album Seed Gathering for a Winter Garden, is a collection of beautifully written and arranged songs and original instrumentals swimming the gamut of indie-gypsy chamber folk.

While the word "Taarka" means many things in many tongues to many peoples, the musical Taarka of your concern hails from Lyons, CO and performs a patented and irreplaceable blended evolution of Western and Eastern folk traditions of jazz, rock, bluegrass, old-time, gypsy, Indian, and Celtic music interpreted through the highly capable ears and hands of four of today's top classically trained, eclectic-acoustic music pioneers.

Collectively and individually, members of Taarka have shared stages with members of the Grateful Dead, Phish, and String Cheese Incident, Yonder Mountain String Band, Darol Anger, Joe Craven, ALO, Keller Williams, Mike Marshall, Danny Barnes, Leftover Salmon, Steve Kimock, Garaj Mahal, Widespread Panic, The Samples, Colonel Bruce Hampton and Aquarium Rescue Unit, Kevin Mohagoney, Kaki King, Drew Emmit Band, Rob Wasserman, Tony Furtado, The Slip, The Motet, Dan Bern, The Everyone Orchestra, and have been Mark O'Connor fiddle camp performers and instructors.

Taarka has performed at such music festivals as High Sierra, Joshua Tree, Northwest String Summit, Oregon Country Fair, Whole Earth, Telluride Bluegrass, Bumbershoot, Seattle Folklife, Earthdance, Full Moon Dream Dance (String Cheese Incident), Horning's Hideout with Leftover Salmon, Faeirieworlds, Willamette Valley Folk, Seattle Hemp Fest, Seattle Rhythm Fest, Bite of Portland, Nedfest, Lightening in a Bottle, Berkeley World Music, Stone Soup World Music, Bend Summer Music, Boise Alive After 5, Frogville Records Frogfest, Yellowstone Music Festival, Garden Valley Bluegrass, Remembering Jerry, Eagle Island Experience, Solano County Fair, Dancin' in the Dunes, Groovefest, Crested Butte Festival for the Arts, Aspen Bluegrass Sundays, Rogue Valley Earthday Celebration, San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, and The Millpond Folk Festival.

Taarka are:

David Tiller

 David Tiller began playing guitar at age 8, spurred on by his musician father. His childhood in Virginia was spent learning the abundance of bluegrass and Celtic music there, but by age 14 he was enriching his knowledge with classical and jazz guitar training at the North Carolina School of the Arts, and began exploring the mandolin. With a diligent practice schedule and great aspirations, David took on the mandolin full time in his late teens, and was a founding member of the celebrated High Sierra Festival Record label's band ThaMuseMeant, based in New Mexico. In ThaMuseMeant's 8 year history, they toured all over the United States, sharing stages with the likes of the Dave Matthews Band, Sheryl Crow, Ricki Lee Jones, Blues Traveler, String Cheese Incident, Leftover Salmon, YMSB, Greg Brown, and many others. In 2000, when the band broke up, David moved to NYC to follow his heart and study jazz, where he met Enion Pelta, a member of Brooklyn Browngrass. They began writing together and formed the group Taarka to feature their music.
photo by Anne Staveley


Enion Pelta-Tiller

Enion Pelta-Tiller began classical violin studies at age 3, but her education was always supplemented by improvisation lessons from her jazz guitarist father. By 16 she had taught herself to compose impromptu melodies in styles from classical sonatas to East Indian ragas and jazz standards. She attended Peabody Institute in Baltimore, MD, working towards a viola performance degree, while also studying english at Johns Hopkins. She, eventually landing in NYC, where she performed cutting edge music straddling punk, free jazz, and classical with various local musicians, and landed a gig with the crown prince of Hungary's New Wave music scene, Menyhart Jeno, as the violinist in Mr Con and the Bioneers. She traveled to Hungary in the summer of 2001 to play the main stage at the Pepsi Sziget, Europe's largest music festival, playing immediately before Run DMC and Morcheeba. Upon her return she focused more on composing and performing the music she and David had been working on together, and the two decided to make a life of it. Enion has performed onstage with Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, Bob Weir and Vince Welnick of the Grateful Dead, Darol Anger, Darrol Scott, John Cowan, Fareed Haque and many others.
photo by Morgan Corviday

Troy Robey

Troy Robey studied with the world renowned Jazz bassist Larry Gray in Chicago in the early 90's. While in Chicago he played electric bass in The Junction, a jam rock group that toured the Midwest, South, and East, opening for acts such as Buddy Guy, Widespread Panic, The Samples, NRBQ, and Colonel Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit. When not playing with The Junction, he freelanced with a number of jazz, rock, and blues groups around the Chicago area and Midwest. Taking an eight year hiatus from professional playing, Robey moved west to study psychology in Corvallis, OR and Pullman, WA. He completed graduate school, spent time working in higher education, writing and traveling, and returned to playing the bass in 2004 to fill a vacancy in the Moscow, ID-based touring bluegrass/jam band Chubbs Toga. In 2006, he began a relationship with the music department at Washington State University, playing for the university big band, Symphony Orchestra, and small jazz and chamber music groups. While at WSU he studied with jazz bassist, David Snider and cellist Ruth Boden, and had the opportunity to perform with such jazz musicians as singer Kevin Mahogany, saxophonist Brent Jensen, trombonist David Glenn, as well as WSU music faculty Greg Yasinitsky (saxophones), Horace Alexander-Young (saxophones), Jennifer Scovell-Parker (vocals), Dave Jarvis (percussion), and Charles Argersinger (piano). In 2007 and 2008 he competed in the international Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Moscow, ID and won the collegiate level bass soloist award both years.


Ben Blecham


Ben began studying violin at the age of 8 in Santa Rosa, CA, and began private instruction with Dominic Dissaro at age 11. He arrived at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), and much to his surprise found himself enrolled in the Music major. He had the great privilege to study advanced classical technique and repertoire under a true master of the violin, Roy Malan. While at UCSC he also studied jazz improvisation with jazz greats Ray Brown (trumpet) and Smith Dobson (piano). He completed a BA in violin performance, and continued on for an MA in 20th Century performance practice, with an emphasis in computer music. Ben spent some time earning a living playing and teaching classical music. He has played with the Santa Cruz Symphony, the Monterey Jazz Festival Orchestra with Roy Hargrove and Terrence Blanchard, and various other symphonies, string quartets, opera companies, etc. Ultimately, he found the classical music world to be unfulfilling, and not particularly lucrative. First and foremost Ben's love of music stems from a feeling of being the music, that he can best achieve through improvisation. He has spent most of his musical energy during recent years intensely studying jazz violin and other fiddle styles. Ben is also an active teacher. He specializes in taking intermediate to advanced classical violinists and continuing their classical training while also broadening their horizons into non-classical and improvisational styles. In 2003 Ben played extensively with the Hot Club of San Francisco (filling in for Evan Price). Since that time, Ben has played with various bands including, Frizz, Hot Club Pacific, Route5, Water Bear, the Djangophiles, Clambake, Graxxus, Xavier and the Classic Band, Blue Lightning, Vagabond Opera, and the 12th Ave Hot Club.

Dale Largent

 Dale Largent has been a musician since before he was born. He took up percussion in utero, and he's never looked back. He plays or has played other instruments too, but with Dale it's the pulse of percussion that gets his heart pumping and turns his creativity loose. In spite of his classical training and proficiency on many percussion instruments, Dale has focused the last 10 years strictly on handdrums. Though still fairly young, Dale's developed a large and growing reputation as a performer, teacher, studio sideman, and advocate for the arts. He's shared the stage and/or recorded with many artists and is a founding artist in COYO and Cadence3. He's studied with world-renowned masters Mamady Keita, Famoudou Konate, Souhail Kaspar, Babatunde Olatunji, and Souren Baronian. Dale is a family fellow, sharing life with his wife Barb (a visual artist) and their two kids, Erica and Ben. He lives in Bend, Oregon, a thriving high desert town which, while not yet a hotbed of world music, probably will be by the time Dale gets through.

 What does Taarka mean?

We came up with the name on a spring day in 2002, when Enion, who loves to cook, especially indian food, thought of it: the word which describes roasting spices to create the base for an indian culinary delicacy. There are two kinds of t(a)arkas - wet and dry. A wet t(a)arka is a mix of garlic, ginger and onions sauteed in ghee. A dry t(a)arka is a mixture of whole spices, dry-roasted or fried in oil, til the seeds begin to pop. Yum! Taarka is in fact the sound of the spices roasting...WOW!
In Poland, the device with which one shreds vegetables. This device is known as a Mandolin in English cooking practice.
In Tibetan: Walnut
T(a)arka is also the daughter of the demon suriya in Hindu mythology - a most evil demoness.
In Magyar, the language of Hungary: Colorful
A hand-made Flute from Bolivia, which plays a 5 note scale.
The last name of a celebrated Estonian folksinger - Haimila Taarka.
In the ever-more-popular Grand Unified Theory in modern physics, which states that the smallest states of matter - quarks, leptons, and other subatomic particles - are not particulate, but are composed of strings of energy which vibrate in different ways to create different "particle behaviors," taarka is the term used to describe the vibration of the strings.
Tarka (note the single 'a') is a heart medication, which, as a Missoula, Montana rag informed us, causes nausea, diarrhea, constipation (?!), and dizziness. This should explain why we use 2 a's instead of one in the definitions where one is the norm.
The residue left on the inside of your skull when you wake up from a really great dream (a chemical fact!)
A village in Tunisia.
A Croatian Noodle Dish.
A town/train line/otter in England.
If you find a definition and want to send it to us (legit definitions only, please), email us at taarka@taarka.com. We'd love to add it to our list!