Thurmond Russell
composer, pre-concert talk speaker
Thurmond Russell was born and raised on Orcas Island and began his musical journey in 2020 with piano lessons. He quickly developed an interest in composition and began formal composition study in 2024. In his writing, he strives for a blend of elements from the 18th and 19th centuries and endeavors to bring freshness and innovation to his compositions from within those paradigms. He was honored with first place in the 2025 Washington State Young Composers Project for his work Waltz Ballade. His music writing has been praised for its flexibility, elegance, balance between regularity and irregularity, and for making the piano sing!
Thurmond’s other interests include portrait drawing, singing, poetry, and languages, Latin and Russian in particular, focusing primarily on translating ancient texts.
