TAARKA at the Black Rose Open Stage Friday!

TAARKA seems like an unusual name for a band until you look it up its root, tarka. One meaning comes from Indian cooking, a favorite pastime of the band’s fiddle player. It’s a common Indian word for a spicy seasoning mix. Seems perfectly appropriate for a band that describes itself as performing “a blended evolution of Western and Eastern folk traditions of jazz, rock, bluegrass, old-time, Gypsy, Indian, and Celtic music.” Spicy mix, indeed.

Our musical TAARKA consists of four of today’s top, classically trained, eclectic -acoustic music pioneers. David Tiller, Enion Pelta-Tiller, and Troy Robey make up the core of the group. In the spirit of their name, they mix in either Ben Blechman or Grant Gordy to create a piquant quartet.

TAARKA’s tunesmithing combines the group’s vocal talents with David’s mandolin and guitar, the energy of Enion’s four and five-string violins, and a foundation provided by Troy’s standup bass. To round out the quartet, Ben adds more fiddle or hand-drum spice. When he joins the group, Gordon mixes in texture on guitar.

Collectively and individually, members of Taarka have shared stages with members of the Grateful Dead, Phish, Dave Matthews Band, Sheryl Crow, Ricki Lee Jones, Blues Traveler, Kaki King, Darrel Anger, and many others. Some members have also been Mark O’Connor Fiddle Camp performers and instructors.

To say that TAARKA is a string band is a little like calling a pre-War, herringbone Martin Dreadnought “an old guitar”. But strings are in the band’s DNA. My favorite review of their music goes like this: “TAARKA is like a drunken cross-cultural wedding party where the bride’s family is a bunch of bluegrassloving back-to-the-landers, and the groom’s crew is composed mostly of vodka-swilling Ukrainian bandits. Good times, good people, good times.”

All that said much more simply; we’re in for a treat on November 23rd, when TAARKA takes the Black Rose stage. We hope we’ll see you in the audience at our little, log concert hall in the forest.


-Bob Lord


Want to see more about Taarka? Visit their website: http://www.taarka.com/

Show Details

Showtime is Friday, November 23rd at 7:00p.m. Doors open at 5:30. Cost: general public $7.00, Students $5.00, BRAS Members $4.00, Children 12 - under are Free.