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Nikolai Ruskin is a multi instrumentalist known for his skill on a variety of instruments from around the Middle East. His influences range from Egyptian folk music to sweeping cinematic scores to Japanese Taiko drums, Gypsy violins and grinding heavy metal riffs.. He carries a passion for visual art and storytelling into his musical aesthetic, crafting his own unique and moving style. Outside of the studio he performs traditional Middle Eastern music, world fusion, punk rock, metal, Indian and Celtic music. On the stage Nikolai specializes in Middle Eastern percussion instruments as well as the Oud (the Arabic lute), Nay (an end blown flute), Zurna (double reed shawm) and Rababa (an Egyptian horse hair spike fiddle). In the studio he can be heard playing kanun (a Turkish zither), violin, guitar, bass, drum kit and cello. Nikolai composes in a variety of styles including Middle Eastern, world fusion, orchestral, funk, rock, electronic and heavy metal.
Nikolai grew up as an artist in San Francisco and Sonoma County, California. He spent his early adulthood as an illustrator before discovering his talent for music in 1996 at age 21 with the punk band “Cat Puke”. He relocated to Ithaca New York that same year, taking up Flamenco guitar and the darbuka, an Arabic hand drum. Upon falling in love with this deceptively simple instrument, Nikolai shifted his focus to an intensive study of traditional instruments from Arab, Turkish, and Persian music. Within a year of taking up music Nikolai was teaching private lessons, group workshops and lecture demonstrations. He formed the gypsy music inspired band “Gadje” with guitarist Art Bakert in 1998, and in 2002 he co-founded the Cornell Middle Eastern Music Ensemble in Ithaca, NY, of which he was the Musical Director until 2006. In 2005 he relocated to Nyack, NY where began composing his own original music as well as music for film and video games.
His past performances include appearances with many well known musicians from a variety of musical traditions, including Naser Musa, Amir El Saffar, Yair Dalal, Latif Bolat, Hank Roberts, the Sharq Ensemble, Turbo Tabla, and Zikrayat. In 2007 Nikolai performed music for Mary Zimmerman’s play “Arabian Nights”, staged at the University of Connecticut. Nikolai’s recording credits include a recent collaboration with one of the top video game composers Jesper Kyd, "Zikrayat: Live at Lotus" by Zikrayat, “The Belly and the Beat” by Turbo Tabla, “the River is High" by Gadje, "The Songs of Sayyed Darweesh: Soul of a People" by the Chicago Classical Oriental Ensemble. He has had the opportunity to learn from some of the top performers of traditional world music such as Omar Faruk Tekbilek, Guru Gangadar Pradham and Professor Ali Jihad Racy.
To hear samples from his compositions and see the instruments that Nikolai records and performs with, visit his website at nikolairuskin.com/music , where you’ll find descriptions, photos and audio clips of each instrument.
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