Enion Pelta-Tiller, from The Enion Pelta Quintet, joins KGNU DJ Greg Schultz to discuss her show at the Dairy Center for the Arts on January 24th. During the session, she shared insights into her creative process, explained how she balances solo writing retreats with collaborative songwriting, and she introduced her custom-built, five-string viola, affectionately named “Trupial.” (Interview date: 1/17/2025)
Greg Schultz: Enion you’re here. Introduce yourself and tell us what you’re here for this morning. We’re so happy to have you here.
Enion Pelta-Tiller: Hi everyone! I’m Enion Pelta-Tiller and I’m an extended range violin player. And I am here because I’ve got a very exciting show coming up at the Dairy Center for the Arts next Friday January 24th at 7:00. So, I’m here today to play a little music that you might hear if you come to that show and maybe some other stuff and talk about it and talk about what I’ve been up to. So thank you for having me, Greg.
Greg Schultz: Oh, we’re just thrilled that you’re here. I know you’re a friend of the station and have played here many times before and it’s nice to have you and your wonderful viola here, which we can talk about after we hear a tune. Why don’t you give us a tune. We’ll come back and chat a little bit and play a few more tunes and get you out of here. But what are you going to kick it off with here?
Enion Pelta-Tiller: I’m going to play a country jazz waltz that I wrote called The Moving Waltz with this project that I’m doing in mind. So, this is The Moving Waltz.
[Enion Pelta-Tiller plays The Moving Waltz]
Greg Schultz: Love that one. Love that. When did you write that?
Enion Pelta-Tiller: I wrote that back in 2022. I periodically go on these writing retreats. I’ll go somewhere by myself and that particular retreat, I went to Carbondale and had a nice little spot by the Crystal River and wrote a nice handful, nice suite of tunes. And some of which were with the sort of jazz Americana blend idea that I’ve been working with, and that’s one of those. When you hear it next Friday with the band, all those nice, complex, dense jazz harmonies. Will be under that melody and I think it’s really cool.
Greg Schultz: Yeah. So do you find yourself? Writing in solitude is better. Or not better, but do you get more out of it or do you like to co-write? I know you do co-write but when you write do you enjoy just being off somewhere by yourself and not to be bothered, so you can just zero in and write a tune?
Enion Pelta-Tiller: It depends. Often when I write songs with lyrics that’s something that I might do more in a public place with people around, but not necessarily engaging with people. And my husband, David and I have co-written stuff before. We tend to do that together in the same room. Where now he’ll throw out some chords and I’ll play a melody and I’ve written a little bit with some other folks that way too. And then. Yeah sometimes it just feels right, especially if it’s been a while and I haven’t had a lot of time for writing, if I just go by myself and maybe don’t even see anybody for a couple days. And really can get in that focused space.
Greg Schultz: No distractions. Nobody to blame but yourself if you don’t walk away with a tune.
Enion Pelta-Tiller: Exactly. And it never fails. Some of my favorite stuff I’ve written has happened during those times.
Greg Schultz: Oh man, I just love that area, the Crystal River and all. It’s just so serene and beautiful. I can see why that would be an enjoyable spot to write some nice peaceful music.
Enion Pelta-Tiller: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It’s very inspired by the river.
Greg Schultz: Very cool. So you have the show coming up and it’s going to be on the 24th, we know, and I wanted to ask you a question. So have you presented the show at the Dairy before and what can people expect? You talked a little bit about that, but maybe jump in to tell us who else is in the group, the Enion Quintet and then let us know what we can expect to hear.
Enion Pelta-Tiller: Sure thing. I’ve performed with essentially this band. There’s a couple different people this time around, but back in October, I did a really fun show at Full Cycle which has this jazz supper club series. And Suter, who books that, Suter DuBose, asked me to do something there. And so I put together this great band with John Gunther and Saks. And for that group, I had Don Clement on keys, Drew Heller on drums, and Will Krupper on bass. Just because of people’s schedules, we’re a little different this time, but it’s an equally exciting band, and some of the new people are going to allow us to do some different stuff than we did and also some of the same repertoire as well. So I’ve got John Gunther on sax again, and then Victor Mestas on keys, who’s really wonderful. And then Will Krupper on bass, again, from Sturtz. And then I have Kevin Matthews on drums, who is the drummer I’ve worked with the most in my life. I love working with Kevin, he plays with Taarka, my band with my husband, and I’ve done other bands where I’ve been the leader playing more of my songwriting stuff with Kevin. That’s the band. And so the tune I just played, you’re going to hear that tune. I’ve got a couple of my original songs as well that we’re going to play. One of which you’ll hear a little later on, and another one from that Crystal River Writing Retreat. And I’m also gonna sing some songs that I love. I think there’s a Big Thief song on the set list. And then, because we have Victor in the band, and he’s such a wonderful interpreter of many different types of Latin jazz. We’re going to do a couple Brazilian tunes. I love playing Brazilian music with Victor. That’s what you can expect to hear. It should be, as I do with everything I do, it’s going to go through many moods and many types of emotional experience. And a couple of the other musicians have brought in tunes too. So we’ll have that different flavor.
Greg Schultz: I think that’s what the folks want. We want to be moved when we go see music and listen to music, right?
Enion Pelta-Tiller: That’s what it’s all about. Exactly.
Greg Schultz: It can’t all be happy and it can’t all be sad. It can be, and then when you watch people perform it, you can feel it because you can see the emotion on the folks playing the music, which is how I connect, especially in a listening room like the Dairy Center, which is beautiful and wonderful and has this great sound. I think your stuff is going to fit perfectly right there. So what is it like playing with all these folks with all these different genres of music, the jazz, the Brazilian, the Americana, bluegrassy stuff? How does that mesh with you? What’s that like?
Enion Pelta-Tiller: And I’ve spent a lot of my years in Colorado, a lot of my career playing in bluegrass and bluegrass adjacent bands. And I really love that. There’s a responsibility that each musician has for being a part of the groove in a different way than with a band like I’m playing next week. Like in a string band, like everybody is, everybody’s a part of a drum set, we all work together as a rhythmic machine. And there’s, yeah there’s just a level of responsibility you have that I actually, I really enjoy but it does mean that certain other things I love to do on my instrument, like more textural ideas and things like that are less appropriate for that context. And also, in that context, when playing with Taarka and other more folk groups, the form of the song is set, or if I’m going to take a solo, it’s generally pretty set how long that’s going to be, and when playing in these jazz contexts, a lot of it is about expression in the moment, and so we all get to stretch out more, and the songs can become something else, they become vehicles for maybe a more in depth exploration of whatever emotional expression is there in the song, which is it’s really fun. In every case you’re serving the song, which is where I like to let things sit. I always want to serve the song, but it’s just in different ways. And I really enjoy the sort of, I call it code switching between all these different genres with all these different musicians, it’s fun to get to. Explore different parts of my musical personality that way
Greg Schultz: That’s fantastic as you do play in a lot of different groups, a lot of different settings which as the musician is inspiring too. That’s how you can draw inspiration from your bandmates, of course on stage and in other settings, but I want to ask you a question. You mentioned the old instrument there. The viola, tell the folks a little bit about your instrument that you’re playing today, it’s just beautiful and it’s a bit unusual, but in a good way. So tell the folks what you’re playing there.
Enion Pelta-Tiller: I’m gonna just play for you the string. So those of you who might be familiar with the violin out there, know that the violin has these notes for its open strings. And then if you’re familiar with the viola, you might know that the viola open strings sound like this. And I have for years played a five string violin, which has all these five notes. So it goes from low C, An octave below middle C. G, D, A, E. And then these have been around for a while, but they’re not really common. So I asked this luthier in Ithaca, New York, who I know, a luthier being a violin maker, instrument maker, who I know has been making six string violins for years and perfecting his design, if he would build one for me. And I expressed to him the concern, which had been brought up to me before when I was looking into this, that my hands might be too small, and he said, “No, not at all, we can do this,” and I later discovered he plays one, and his hands are about the same size as mine, not only can he play it, he makes gorgeous instruments, violins of different ranges, guitars, mandolins, and so I had him build this beautiful instrument, which is called trupial, because it’s got this bird. It’s a Venezuelan type of aureole. It’s a songbird, and the female songbirds sing just as complex songs as the male in this species. And so this is Trupia, and she has a low F string, so this is my range. And I’ve had this instrument since 2021, and I feel like I really found my voice and it’s wonderful because I sing when I play often and it’s a way to back myself up and also it’s great for finger picking. So it’s very all purpose, which I like, I don’t like to have to carry around a lot of instruments.
Greg Schultz: You’re lucky you’re not quite as lucky as the harmonica player who only has. Put them in his pocket and just get in there and get in the van.
Enion Pelta-Tiller: Except they have to carry around different harps for different gigs.
Greg Schultz: They have the case and all that but I meant, you know my in my genre, you know my age group the guy had whatever he could put in his pocket That was it.
Enion Pelta-Tiller: If I have a big enough pocket.
Greg Schultz: Darn near can put that in a pocket. If you found some cargo jeans that had those oversized pockets, you might be able to put that thing in there.
Enion Pelta-Tiller: Yeah. Oh, I forgot to mention this. So this instrument is called a fadolin. A friend of mine, this wonderful fadolinist in New York named Jove Zurban coined the term, and we call it a fadolin because It’s got the top four like a violin and then it’s got a fa and a do.
Greg Schultz: Very cool. I don’t even know, I doubt if I’ve seen one. I can’t say that I have, but I certainly would have noticed it and I did, we talked about it. It’s a very cool instrument. Why don’t we put that to use? Why don’t you give us another tune? What do you want to play for us?
Enion Pelta-Tiller: All right. This is a song, those of you out there who have heard me play before have undoubtedly heard this song. This is one of my favorites to play. This is called Have You Ever. And it was written on November 9th, 2016, which was a Wednesday. And it’s just a bunch of questions I would personally like to ask my elected officials. Things that I think are really important if you’re going to be responsible for the fate of millions and millions of people. Here we go. Here’s Have You Ever.
[Enion Pelta-Tiller plays Have You Ever]
Greg Schultz: Wow, yeah, that’s a fitting tune for the time. And the times. And the times I should say. Yeah, I know.
Enion Pelta-Tiller: But the less said about that, the better .
Greg Schultz: We’re, we don’t talk about any of that other than, the song is driven from your heart and from your soul and by watching you play it I can tell you, you love that song.
Enion Pelta-Tiller: I do. I mean it. Yeah.
Greg Schultz: And you mean it. Damn it. She means it, folks. So you better listen to her. Listen, we’re going to get you out of here, but we will play one more song before we get you out of here. And so what are you, new music? What is going on? Is there anything happening with new music and you and Taarka or in quintet or soul stuff? What are you working on? I know you guys have a whole bunch of records out, Taarka, I think.
Enion Pelta-Tiller: Yeah. Taarka does. Yeah. Back in 2022, I released my first record under my own name, which is a bit of Django jazz arranged for Django Reinhardt’s style jazz arranged for string quartet, and also with a more Django style band. And I’m hoping that at one point later this year, maybe I can get the string quartet back together and do at least some shows with that arrangement. Taarka’s been working on some new music. As those of you who follow Taarka may know, that’s with David and my son Aesop is our bass player now, which is so cool. And so we’re working on getting him on the record. He’s 16. He’s awesome. And I am also planning this year, probably in the early fall, to record an album of my songs, but with this end quintet band, so, my songwriter thing, but more of a jazz approach to it.
Greg Schultz: Nice. So you just get irons in the fire like there’s no tomorrow.I love it. No, that’s great. That’s great
Enion Pelta-Tiller: That’s how I live.
Greg Schultz: That’s how you live and that’s your DNA. Is it hard to switch around for you at all? I mean you’ve got I mean it’s all centred on the viola for you. But still to think about how you want the other people to sound. Is that, because you have similar instruments in some of the bands, but the music is different. So how does that work? I’m not asking you to get in your brain, but is it easy for you to differentiate when you sit down with this group that I want to make sure it doesn’t sound like Taarka or something like that?
Enion Pelta-Tiller: Yeah, I choose the people that I work with that in mind, and trying to get better at asking people for what I think the song needs from them in a different context. I don’t think a song should sound the same every time it’s played. One thing I did want to mention, speaking of the variety of things I do before I play you out, is that on February 9th, I’m really excited that the Boulderfield Harmonic has invited me to be a soloist with them playing some fiddle music and a little bit of I don’t know exactly what you’d call it. It’s more in a classical vein, but by the jazz composer, Ornette Coleman, but I’m going to be playing some fiddle pieces with the string orchestra component of the Boulder Phil and and hosting the concert, which has a lot of different stuff on the program that I helped the orchestra choose and it’s going to be such a beautiful evening. There’s lots more going on than just me. And, I really hope that folks would want to come to both shows, both January 24th and then February 9th with the Boulder Phil, because it’s completely different worlds and all really fun stuff. And that February 9th show is at the Parsons Center in North Glenn at 6:30, I believe.
Greg Schultz: What an honor. That’s gotta feel pretty darn good to be invited and to participate in a mass orchestra setting and again, it just shows your like variety of talent and it’s impressive. It’s nice to be invited. You know what I mean? And I don’t know how that came about, but we here in the Boulder area are proud of you.
Enion Pelta-Tiller: Ah, thank you.
Greg Schultz: Of course. Of course. January 24th, Dairy Arts Center folks, run out, get your tickets, show up, be there, and support the Enion Quintet, and then February 9th in North Glenn with the Boulder Philharmonic. Check all that, where can they find that information at? Can you let the folks know?
Enion Pelta-Tiller: If you go to enionviolin.com, which that’s my website, that actually takes you to my band camp page, but I have everything that I’m doing up there, including stuff I’m doing with Taarka, which we have some stuff coming up. Yeah, go to www.enionviolin.com and you can find out what I’m up to. And I hope to see you at all the shows coming up.
Greg Schultz: We appreciate you coming in. This is KGNU FM 88.5 Boulder, KGNU 1390. We’ve been honored to have Enion Pelta-Tiller in here. And she’s going to take you out with a song. I don’t know, what’s the name of the song?
Enion Pelta-Tiller: This is a tune I wrote called The Antidote. It was written in 2020.
Greg Schultz: Here we go. Thanks for coming in and we appreciate it and take us on out. Thanks a lot.
Enion Pelta-Tiller: Thanks so much for having me, Greg. You bet. Love KGNU.
[Enion Pelta-Tiller plays The Antidote]
