Musical Director

Russell is a composer, conductor and teacher. He was born in Cornwall and educated at Helston School and Bristol University, where he studied composition with Derek Bourgeois. He was the Head of Music at Richard Lander School, where he conducted five choirs. In 1987 he founded the Cornwall Youth Chamber Choir and was awarded the Gorsedd prize. Russell has also worked with the Cornwall Male Voice Choir and Duchy Opera where he was repetiteur and chorus master. He is currently Deputy Musical Director of Truro Choral Society.

He has taught composition for the South West Music School. In 2000 he was nominated as one of Classic FM's Music Teachers of the Year. He was runner-up in the South West Teacher of the Year 2004 and was made a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedd in 2000.

As a composer Russell has a very successful record including his Fantasia on Cornish Songs, for audience, choir, soloists and orchestra formed the second half of the annual Cornish Last Night of the Proms. In 2003 the last movement, an arrangement of Trelawny, the Cornish anthem,was performed in the Sydney Opera House during the Kernow Choir's tour of Australia. In 2012 Russell worked in collaboration with Miracle Theatre and English Touring Opera (ETO) on the music for the play TIN. It was commissioned by Cornish Mining World Heritage Site. This project combined a large number of young singers for eight secondary schools, members of male voice choirs and Benjamin Luxon in one of his first acting roles. It toured throughout the county and was selected as one of Art Council England's (ACE) cultural highlights of 2012.

Russell's Pader an Arluth, a setting of the Lord's Prayer, in the Cornish language was written to celebrate the visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury to Cornwall to bless the new translation of the Bible into Cornish. This began a close working relationship with Christopher Gray and the Truro Cathedral Choir and Russell has subsequently written a Missa Brevis, Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis and many anthems for use in their daily liturgy. March 2013 saw the first performance of his Secular Requiem which had been commissioned by The Three Spires Singers and subsequently performed in London. In late 2022 a CD recording was made by Regent Records with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Truro cathedral Choir and soloists. Some of Russell's compositions are available for purchase via his website and on CD. His publishers are Boosey & Hawkes and OUP (Oxford University Press).

Assistant Musical Director

John, a Feock boy who learned to play the piano from the age of 7, joined the original Carnon Vale Male Voice Choir in 1967 when he was eighteen and has been with the Choir ever since. He has been Choir Master and Organist at Threemilestone Methodist

Assistant Musical Director & Accompanist

Chris joined us at the end of 2018 and has an excellent experience of male voice choirs having accompanied the mass Cornish male choirs at the Albert Hall in 2013. A Truro man, he went to the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and has subsequently developed a successful music teaching career. He is also a talented viola player performing for assorted function and wedding bands and ensembles as well as a Classical and Jazz Examiner for Trinity College London. Having had a fantastic musical education in Cornwall, he is passionate about ensuring that the next generation of local children have the same opportunities

Assistant Accompanist

Ruth graduated in music at Southampton University where she gained a BA and Masters Degree in Music Performance. She is an accomplished performer of piano, organ and violin.

Ruth currently accompanies many choirs, including Tresillian Singers, Kernow Voices Choirs, Eight in a Bar, Good Afternoon Choirs and Treverva Male Voice Choir, as well as playing the organ for St Budock and St Mylor church.