A winner of multiple awards, Russell received grand prizes at the Golden Violin Competition, the Peter Mendell award, and top prizes at Prix d’Éurope and Allentown Symphony Orchestra’s Schadt String Competition.

As soloist, Russell has performed with the Maryland Symphony Orchestra, the Northwestern University Alumni Symphony, the Colorado College Summer Music Festival Orchestra, L’orchestre du Festival Bach International de Montréal, L’orchestre I Medici de McGill, and L'Orchestre des Jeunes de Mont Royal. In this capacity, Russell has been fortunate to collaborate with oustanding conductors, including Elizabeth Schulze, Clemens Schuldt, Adam Johnson, Jean MacRae, Scott Yoo, Hoh Chen, and Nicholas Koo.

Russell’s career has had a strong focus on chamber music, and especially the string quartet repertoire. As a founding member of the Myriade, Persée, and Iceberg String Quartets, Russell has won grand prizes at the McGill Chamber Music Competition and the WDAV Competition, and participated in advanced rounds of the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition and the Young Concert Artist’s Competition. As a member of these ensembles, Russell has been invited to participate in the Banff, Premio Paolo Borciani, Trondheim, and Chesapeake Competitions. All three quartets were mentored extensively by Professor André Roy. Russell also co-founded Ensemble Urbain, a conductor-free chamber orchestra emphasizing the performance of new and underrepresented works in immersive and unconventional concert experiences. Russell also performs with Trio 888, a Toronto/Montréal based piano trio, and the Tahanan Trio, a piano trio based in New York City. Most recently, Russell has cofounded Duo Chromatika, a duo group with his partner and quartet-mate, violinist Julia Mirzoev. In Duo Chromatika, Russell performs as violinist and guitarist in music ranging from Baroque and Rococo masterworks all the way to advanced and complex Jazz music from the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as original and new works. Russell has had the privilege of performing with a number of world-class artists in chamber music settings, including Andrew Wan, Philip Chiu, Phillip Ying, David Ying, Robin Scott, Juan-Miguel Hernandez, Yegor Dyachkov, Eric Nowlin, Jennifer Frautschi, Scott St. John, Sharon Wei, Charles Richard-Hamelin, Kyoko Hashimoto, and Mark Fewer, among others. 

As an orchestral musician, Russell has served as assistant and associate concertmaster with L’Orchestre du Festival Bach International de Montréal, and I Musici de Montréal. Russell has also played a number of concerts as a substitute violinist with L’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal.

A graduate of McGill University’s Schulich School of Music and Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, Russell was mentored by Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal Concertmaster Andrew Wan, and Chicago Symphony Orchestra violinist Blair Milton. Other significant professors include Phyllis Freeman, Naoko Tanaka, Scott Yoo, Robin Scott and Ian Swensen. Russell has also extensively studied string quartet literature with esteemed chamber music mentor, Professor André Roy.

Russell’s musical interests extend beyond his love of the violin and the classical music literature. From a young age, Russell has performed and recorded extensively as a Blues, Folk, Rock, and Jazz guitarist, singer, flutist and mandolinist with various bands in the United States, most notably as part of the Tomy Wright String Orchestra. Recently, as a member of Duo Chromatika, Russell has been exploring and creating music in the style of the great Jazz guitarist, Django Reinhardt.

Russell performs on a violin made in 1761 by Nicolò Gagliano and a bow made in the 1830’s by Étienne Pajeot on generous loan from a private sponsor. Russell also performs on modern bows by François Malo (2020) and Sandrine Lhermenier (2023).