Brian Russell is the Executive Director of the Ethos Youth Ensembles, where he conducts the Preparatory Choir and Apprentice Choir and oversees a comprehensive youth ensemble organization that includes a two-year curriculum of beginning string instruction, three string orchestras, a jazz ensemble, wind symphony, and graded children's choir program.  A native of Nashville, Dr. Russell holds his Bachelor of Music degree from Middle Tennessee State University where he studied trombone, piano, violin, and voice.   He received his Masters and Doctorate degrees in Conducting from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where he won the coveted Walter Hagan Conducting Prize and the Julius Herford Prize, awarded for outstanding research in his dissertation on the music of G. P. Telemann.  

Before returning to Murfreesboro in 2012, Dr. Russell was Assistant Professor of Music at Illinois Wesleyan University (Bloomington) and Hobart and William Smith Colleges (Geneva, NY), where he conducted vocal and instrumental ensembles, taught conducting and courses in secondary instrumental and vocal methods.  He has also taught middle and high school instrumental and vocal music at five different schools in Rutherford and Sumner counties.  He remains an active guest conductor, having been an invited clinician for regional and All-State choirs across the Southeast, Midwest, and Northeast.

Dr. Russell is the Chair of Fine Arts and Co-Director of Choirs at Stewarts Creek High School, where he teaches Dual Enrollment Music Theory, co-produces two musicals per year, and conducts five choirs.  Dr. Russell is also Director of Music at St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Franklin.  Dr. Russell lives in Murfreesboro with his wife and three children, all of whom are members of the Ethos Youth Ensembles.

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brussell@ethosmusic.net