Christopher Russell hat internationales Ansehen erlangt durch seine Arbeit als Dirigent, innovative Programme, Vorträge und seinen Unterricht von jungen Dirigenten. Die Los Angeles Times beschrieb ihn als einen “äusserst ausdrucksstarken Dirigenten gepaart mit exzellenter Technik.”
Russell ist Professor und Abteilungsleiter für Musik an der Azusa Pacific University (APU) im Süden von Kalifornien. Er leitet das APU Sinfonieorchester und den Studiengang für Orchesterdirigieren.
Gastdirigate führten ihn unter anderem zu dem Orquestra Sinfônica Heliópolis in São Paulo, Brasilien, dem MasterWorks Festival in Ohio und Indiana, sowie Orchestern in China, u.a. das Harbin Symphony, das Shenzhen City Philharmonic und das Yellow River Symphony in Zhengzhou. Als Gastdozent und Jurymitglied war er ebenfalls in anderen Städten Chinas wie Peking, Dalian, Hong Kong und Qingdao. Als Dirigent ist er auch in der New Yorker Carnegie Hall, dem Sydney Opera House und anderen berühmten Konzertsälen in London, Wien, Prag, Moskau und St. Petersburg aufgetreten..
A champion of new music, Russel has conducted numerous premieres, including American premieres of works by Tansy Davies, Brett Dean, Jonathan Harvey, Anders Hillborg, Tristan Keuris, Magnus Lindberg, Per Nørgård, Kaija Saariaho and Éric Tanguy. With the APU Orchestra he presented the American premiere of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Stockholm Diary for string orchestra.
Russell is also very interested in performing rarely heard works from the first half of the 20th century; this led to several US or California premieres of the music of Havergal Brian, Rued Langgaard, Bohuslav Martinu and Allan Pettersson. As a guest conductor outside the United States, he conducted the premieres of Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 2 in Australia and Brazil, the Austrian and Slovakian premieres of Ives’ Decoration Day , and the Russian premiere of Peter Mennin’s Symphony No. 5. Russell also conducted the 1878 world premiere of Leopold Damrosch’s Symphony in A with the APU Symphony Orchestra; he also recorded this work for the British label Toccata Classics.
Until 2019, Russell conducted the Orange County School of the Arts Symphony Orchestra for a period of more than 20 years during which he has received numerous praises for the quality of the orchestra and its innovative programs. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers has recognized him ten times with the Contemporary Music Award. Seven of those times he took first place in the United States.
He is a regular guest lecturer and gives introductions to works before concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, as well as with the Orange County Philharmonic Society and the Pacific Symphony Orchestra. He has also interviewed many internationally renowned artists for the LA Philharmonic, including Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jaap van Zweden, Emanuel Ax, Leila Josefowicz and John Adams.
You can follow Russell on Instagram: @russellconductor
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