Earlham Echo

August 1, 2023

With the COVID shutdown long in the rearview mirror, live music is back. People are clamoring to be out and about this summer and bands are back on the road and busy, seemingly playing anytime, anywhere.

Things are so good for musicians that Diana Ladio is pulling double shifts. As fiddler/vocalist for The Elders, she’s also a part of the instrumental duo The Moxie Strings, who is also touring extensively this summer. Fortunately, many of the gigs are at the same festivals that The Elders are playing—but it’s an understatement to say that Ladio is piling up the frequent flyer miles this summer.

“New stuff is popping up all the time,” she said. “I’m just in the season where I say yes to gigs.”

For the Nashville resident, life on the road is just part of the job and she embraces the travel.

“I try not to think too hard about it,” said Ladio. “Rather than it being ‘home’ or ‘on tour,’ I just try to think about it as just kind of my life in general. I make myself at home wherever I am. It is a fun life.”

A member of the Elders since 2015, Ladio formed the Moxie Strings in 2007 with cellist Alison Lynn. After a decade-and-a-half of creating genre-bending music with folky, Irish leanings, the band is on their farewell tour this season. 

“It’s definitely bittersweet,” said Ladio. “We made the decision last year. It’s kind of like a ‘quit while we’re ahead scenario.’ We’ve had a really great run. It’s been an amazing career for over 15 years. And we’ve been saying we don’t know many millennials who are in the same career that they were in when they were 19. So it’s just kind of a matter of trusting that there’s a new adventure out there and opening up a space to see what the universe has in store.”

Ladio grew up in Michigan under the influence of her parents’ eclectic musical tastes. Her mom was a ‘screaming Beatles girl’ and her dad enjoyed classic rock and classical music. She got her start playing music in a group setting just like a lot of kids do around here.

“I started playing my instrument in my public-school orchestra program, which I’m very proud of,” she said. “It was a great program in southeast Michigan—an extracurricular program called the Chelsea House Orchestra. Our director started with the idea that we would just learn some fiddle tunes together in the afternoons after school. And it turned into a group that toured and played some festivals. That’s really what taught me that there was way more to playing a stringed instrument than sitting in an orchestra. It taught me that I love being onstage and making eye contact with people and being able to perform for an audience.”

In 2014, Ladio informally sat in and played with The Elders. A year later, she got an official invitation to join the band. The Elders had a brief retirement in 2018, but for the better part of 20 years, the Kansas City-based band has been one of the best—and most in-demand—Irish rock bands in the country. Their dynamic shows are the stuff of legend and the energy and fun pulsing from the stage is palpable.

“I’m glad that comes across. That’s totally genuine,” said Ladio. “We have so much fun onstage. You don’t have to be Irish to really love Irish music. It’s meant to be danced to—and it’s a togetherness culture of having pints and playing tunes and enjoying each other’s company. I’m not Irish at all, but I was drawn to the culture, as so many non-Irish people are.”

Ladio moved to Nashville in 2019 and has enjoyed living and working in the musical hotbed. “The number of musicians here that share this lifestyle and who are creating and recording cool music is just off the charts,” she said. “It’s been such a joy to just be around people who want to be spending their time playing and writing and creating music. The whole town is oriented around creativity and producing this art form. The comparison I make is to a fishing town or a mining town—just about every bit of the town is somehow connected to this one industry. Even my accountants are specifically for touring musicians. And the doctors here understand the touring schedule. It definitely makes taking your art seriously and prioritizing creativity a lot easier when everyone around you is doing the same thing.”

After a rain-shortened performance in Earlham last year, the Elders return to headline the Levitt Amp Earlham Music Series this Sunday. The Brian Herrin Trio opens the show at 6 p.m.