Richard D. Russell

(b. 1968)

A multi-year ASCAP­plus win­ner, Richard D. Rus­sell’s music has been per­formed inter­na­tion­ally and at promi­nent venues in New York. High­lights include a Sep­tem­ber 11, 2002 memo­r­ial per­for­mance of “Remem­brances” at New York City’s Merkin Con­cert Hall, and a per­for­mance of “Design for Light­ning” by trom­bon­ist Haim Avit­sur in Israel. As well, his music has been per­formed in Bul­garia and Japan. In New York, some venues have included Sym­phony Space Thalia, CAMI Hall, the Eth­i­cal Cul­ture Soci­ety, and Mannes Col­lege of Music.

Richard’s most recent suc­cesses were two com­mis­sions by esteemed musi­col­o­gist Lawrence Kramer: one, a song cycle for Ford­ham University’s “Poets Out Loud” fac­ulty group; sec­ond, a solo piano com­po­si­tion per­formed in con­junc­tion with a two-day sem­i­nar spon­sored by the jour­nal, 19^th-Century Music.

Richard also writes music for musi­cal the­ater in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Emily Clare Thomp­son. These shows, both fun and edu­ca­tional, and have been pro­duced by SALAD, the Stu­dent Actors League of Arts and Drama, an enrich­ment pro­gram at a pub­lic school in cen­tral New Jer­sey. In 2011, these SALAD musi­cals won a 2011 “Promis­ing Prac­tices” award from the Char­ac­ter Enrich­ment Part­ner­ship. This Wash­ing­ton, DC based orga­ni­za­tion is con­cerned with “Pro­vid­ing the vision, lead­er­ship and resources for school, fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties to develop eth­i­cal cit­i­zens com­mit­ted to build­ing a just and car­ing world.” The cita­tion for this can be found by click­ing here.

A life­long lover of music, Richard heard Beethoven’s “Moon­light Sonata” at age 13 and soon began his for­mal piano stud­ies. Shortly there­after he began com­pos­ing. Over the years he has also stud­ied gui­tar, trum­pet, vio­lin, and per­cus­sion. He earned his BA in Music Com­po­si­tion from Black­burn Col­lege (Illi­nois), grad­u­at­ing magna cum laude, and is cur­rently pur­su­ing his Mas­ters at SUNY Empire State. He has pre­sented lec­tures on the inter­dis­ci­pli­nary nature of cre­ativ­ity at Mannes Col­lege of Music, to the New York Com­posers Cir­cle, and to the East Hanover School Dis­trict (NJ). He pub­lishes a pod­cast, Cre­ativ­ity and Com­po­si­tion, avail­able at iTunes. In addi­tion, he pub­lishes the online blog ver­sion of Cre­ativ­ity and Com­po­si­tion, avail­able on this website.

Richard Rus­sell has been active in the New York Com­posers Cir­cle for sev­eral years, hav­ing served on its Steer­ing Com­mit­tee and act­ing as Man­ag­ing Direc­tor. Cur­rently, he acts as the NYCC web­mas­ter and In The Loop newslet­ter edi­tor. He is also the artis­tic con­sul­tant for In Mid Air Pro­duc­tions, which has pre­sented sev­eral of Richard’s pieces.

Richard Russell’s music is pub­lished by Design for Light­ning Music (ASCAP).

Top row, left to right: Stanichka Dim­itrova | Thad­deus Fer­gu­son, Chiara Issa | Stephen Solook, Tiffany DuMouchelle | the Stella Trio
Bot­tom row, left to right: Richard D. Rus­sell, Christina Goyne | Emily Thomp­son, Richard D. Rus­sell | Daniel Natkie & Jes­sica Cas­tro in an Edgar Allan Poe concert