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TAARKA, led
by David Tiller and Enion Pelta-Tiller, is the natural next step in the
evolution of music. The
group features high-energy performance and innovative compositions, expanding a
musical canvas by drawing on the sounds of old and new from world folk, jazz,
classical, and rock energy into a synergy of swirling gypsy world dervish for a
truly unique and exciting brand of music performed with master musicianship.
Both David and Enion are also members of the national touring progressive folk
act ThaMuseMeant, and have been touring with this group as well since 2003.
David Tiller - mandolin, 5ths tuned guitar, and vocals, and
Enion Pelta-Tiller – 5 string violin and vocals began playing and writing
together in the spring of 2001. They met through playing together in a Williamsburg,
Brooklyn-based band called Brooklyn Browngrass. They moved to Oregon to
continue to develop their unique sound, and most recently moved to Colorado to
explore the heart of acoustic music with an electric energy. A rotating cast of
excellent musicians join them for live shows, including Eric Thorin (Open Road,
Matt Flinner, Tony Furtado), and
Damian Erskine (Tony Furtado).
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 in Brooklyn Browngrass. They
began writing together and formed the group Taarka to feature their music.
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 shared stages (literally) with Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart,
Bob Weir and Vince Welnick of the Grateful Dead, Darol Anger of fiddle fame,
and many others.
Dale Largent,
Handdrums and percussion (Chicago, Illinois) Dale's 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's 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.
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