John Morris Russell’s embrace of America’s unique voice and musical stories has transformed how orchestral performances connect and engage with audiences. As conductor of the world-renowned Cincinnati Pops Orchestra since 2011, he continues to reinvigorate the musical scene throughout Cincinnati and across the continent with the wide range and diversity of his work as a musical leader, collaborator and educator. As music director of the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra in South Carolina, Russell conducts the classical series, as well as the prestigious Hilton Head International Piano Competition.
A Grammy-nominated artist, Russell has worked with leading performers from across a variety of musical genres, including Emanuel Ax, Aretha Franklin, Rhiannon Giddens, Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Garrick Ohlsson, Hilary Hahn, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Cynthia Erivo, Sutton Foster, George Takei, Steve Martin, Brian Wilson, Leslie Odom Jr., Lea Salonga and Mandy Gonzalez.
A popular guest conductor, Russell has worked with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, the Boston Pops and the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C. He frequently conducts Canadian orchestras, including Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver, and has led the orchestras of Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Dallas and Minnesota, as well as Utah Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Colorado Symphony and New Jersey Symphony. Russell makes his St. Louis Symphony Orchestra debut in 2025.
His work in opera and musical theater includes Cincinnati Opera, where he conducted its first production of Hans Krasá’s Brundibár, and the world premiere of Blind Injustice, which was released on CD in 2021. He has also worked with Wolf Trap Opera, New York City Ballet and led semi-staged productions of “The Music Man” and “Ragtime” with the Cincinnati Pops.
Since 2014, Russell has regularly led the National Orchestral Institute and Festival in College Park, Maryland, one of the nation’s premier training orchestras. In 2024, he and the NOI collaborated with Wolf Trap Opera on a production of Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins, repeated with the Hilton Head Symphony in 2025. Dedicated to sharing the American musical experience with the newest generation, he helped develop and conducted the LinkUP! Educational concert series at Carnegie Hall during 1997-2009, a continuation of the program launched by Walter Damrosch in 1891 and continued under Leonard Bernstein. Russell has piloted educational programs with the Symphony Orchestras of Cincinnati, Windsor and Hilton Head.
For more than two decades, Russell has led the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s wildly successful “Classical Roots” initiative honoring and celebrating Black musical excellence, which has garnered record-breaking, in-person and online audiences. Guest artists have included Marvin Winans, Alton White, George Shirley, Common and Hi-Tek.
Russell has contributed seven albums to the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra discography, including the holiday album “JOY!” (2023). In 2015, he created the “American Originals Project,” which has won both critical and popular acclaim, and produced two landmark recordings: “American Originals” (the music of Stephen Foster) and the Grammy-nominated “American Originals 1918” (a tribute to the dawn of the jazz age). The “American Originals” concert saluting King Records and the Cincinnati Sound, with “Late Show” pianist Paul Shaffer in 2020, honored legendary recording artists associated with the Queen City.
In the 24/25 season, Russell made the next installment of the project with a concert and recording celebrating the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance, and a national PBS broadcast of "Rick Steves’ Europe: A Symphonic Journey." Russell’s “American Soundscapes” video series with the Pops and Cincinnati’s CET Public Television has surpassed 1 million views on YouTube since its launch in 2016.
Russell served as music director of the Windsor Symphony Orchestra during 2001-2012, whene he conducted more than 40 world premieres and recorded the Juno Award-nominated album of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. During his time with the WSO, he was a two-time recipient of Ontario’s Lieutenant Governor’s Award for the Arts. In 2011, the University of Windsor awarded him an honorary doctorate; the following year he was named the WSO’s first conductor laureate. He recently concluded his nine-year tenure as principal pops conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, following Doc Severinsen and Marvin Hamlisch.
Russell earned degrees from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and Williams College in Massachusetts; he has studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado and the Pierre Monteux School for Conductors in Hancock, Maine.
Please visit John Morris Russell’s website at https://www.johnmorrisrussell.com/
April 2025
Please note: Biographies are based on information provided to the CSO by the artists or their representatives. More current information may be available on websites of the artists or their management.
