Cafe Antarsia Ensemble Video
Mark Siska completes production on web video for Cafe Antarsia Ensemble
"This is cabaret theater as damnation tongue in chic...with everything
from breathy love songs to darkly urgent ballads with a Balkan flavor."
New York Village Voice
“Ruth
Margraff is a performance artist who looks like Shirley Temple, sounds
like Marilyn Monroe and has the mentality of Thomas Merton eating alive
William S. Burroughs. She’s got a savage imagination and a very sweet
affect.” Erik Ehn National Public Radio “All Things Considered”:
Rebellion in the Regional Ranks
“Composer Brisco has written a melodic score full of gypsy influences…Special mention must go to Orpheus’ four-piece band: guitarists Brisco and Ron Riley, percussionist Rami El-Aasser, and accordion player Ruth Margraff all perform beautifully.” New York Theater.com
“A mix of Balkan, Greek, Texan and rock sounds. These faintly exotic
melodies make for a most unusual soundscape. As befits the underworld,
the songs are lamentations, full of keening and pain.”
New York CurtainUp
“From the enchanting lilt of librettist Ruth Margraff’s voice…the gorgeously poetic dialogue with which Margraff has endowed her libretto, the intoxicating Balkan rhythms composer Nikos Brisco has laced through his score for a feisty gypsy band, and the historic subject matter complete with warring factions, bloodthirsty brothers, and dangerous seduction, it seems that…the duo may have a little masterpiece on their hands.” Arts Cure Magazine on CAFÉ ANTARSIA at Culturemart/Here Arts Center
Nikos Brisko
Born the son of a Texas oil rigger and a Greek belly dancer who met in Libya, Africa, Nikos Brisco was born and raised in Dallas, where he is famous for his alt-country band FEVER IN THE FUNKHOUSE signed to Polygram Records in 1992 and voted “Best New Act 90” and “Best Act Overall 91” by The Dallas Observer, one of the defining pioneers of the Deep Ellum music scene. In 1993, Brisco recorded his first solo work PLUTO with the internationally renowned “gypsy classical”/jazz band Café Noir.As well as Gypsy guitar Brisco also plays Greek trichordo & tetrachordo bouzoukia, tzouras & baglama, laouto and Turkish oud.
Ruth Margraff
Representation: c/o Abrams Artists, 275 Seventh Ave, 26th Fl. NYC 10001 (646) 436-8600 x223 RUTH MARGRAFF was born in Ohio and grew up singing and playing piano all over the Midwest for her father who was a traveling preacherman. She carved a path through some prestigious writing programs including Iowa and Brown to New York City where she went from being a vaudeville actor to being lately being named as a leader in the new opera, music/theater movement in America. Her writings with music have been produced and developed all over the United States and in Russia, Japan, Serbia, Greece, New Zealand, Canada, etc. She has received numerous grants and awards from foundations including 3 Rockefeller commissions in new opera, Jerome and McKnight Playwriting Fellowships, 2 NYSCA Individual Artist Awards, an NEA/TCG Fellowship for Playwriting and several travel grants from TCG/ITI and Arts International.
Rami El-Aasser
Rami El-Aasser can be found at many of NYC's belly dance joints, inspiring ecstatic gyrations through tight rhythms on the dumbek, frame drum and riq. Although steeped in Egyptian music, Rami was drawn to the mixed repertoire of the NYC dance scene, including music from the greater Middle East, Turkey, Persia, Israel, Armenia, and Greece. Rami has performed at NYC Summer Stage 2001 and at Lallapalooza 2003. He appeared in the 2003 Moscow tour of Nikos Brisco and Ruth Margraff's Judges 19, and also develops and performs music for Egg-Shaped Productions Puppet shows in Madison Square Park. Rami has been performing with Brisco and Margraff since 2001 and has been featured with them on Wellspring at The Public Theatre’s New Work Now Spring 2004, Café Antarsia at HERE Arts Center’s Culturemart 2005. Rami is an original member of Café Hasani Ensemble.
Ron Riley
A professional actor and musician, Ron Riley is a veteran of "many dusty, downtown productions,” he is a 1991 graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, where he received a B.F.A. with Honors and a 1991 Founders Award. Ron recently appeared in Orpheus at HERE Arts Center directed by Kristin Marting with music composed by Nikos Brisco and Café Antarsia at HERE’s Culturmart Festival. Ron was born in the Pacific Northwest and started playing guitar when he was ten years old. He studied jazz, classical guitar and is greatly influenced by Delta slide. Ron plays guitar, Greek tzouras and laouto in Café Hasani Ensemble.
