Russell, an established opera singer for over 20 years, trained at The Royal College of Music and at The Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall. He appears regularly at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and The English National Opera. He has worked with some of the world's leading opera companies including the Singapore Opera as well as London Voices and the GOK Radio Choir in Amsterdam. His many roles have ranged from "Ramiro" in La Cenerentola, and "Macduff" in Macbeth to "Flute" in A Midsummer Night's Dream. He is also in demand as a film and session singer counting Lord of the Rings and Star Wars among his credits. As a composer, his first opera "Rigour Mortis" has just been completed. He has been training singers, beginners, children and working professionals privately since 1998. Merton Singers, where he is Musical Director and Conductor, began as a singing training class that developed into a choir. Since taking over in 2004 it now combines training with repertoire and concerts. Russell's approach to singing emphasises that simplicity is the key, one supervised step at a time. All singers, whether they are singing Classical, Pop or Musicals can gain from exercising the voice regularly and in a certain way. From singing folk songs, to musical songs, to ballads, to pop, to operatic arias - the very basic technique is the same. A reliable technique gained gently over time, gives a singer confidence. From there you have a choice of what to sing. A confident singer will not push or pull the voice around to force it to work. He or she just simply sings.