page_title: Bill Russell (composer)
section_title: Composer
hierarchical_section_title: Bill Russell (composer) / Composer
caption_attribution_description: New Orleans: The New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra playing in Waldenberg Park. Musicians visible include Paul Crawford, trombone; Lionel Ferbos, trumpet; William Russell, violin.
context_page_description: William "Bill" Russell was an American music historian and modernist composer. Named Russell William Wagner at birth, when he decided to become a classical music composer, he dropped his last name—as it already "was taken" by Richard Wagner.
context_section_description: Born in the small Missouri city of Canton, Bill Russell was a leading figure in percussion music composition, influenced by his acquaintances John Cage and Henry Cowell. In turn, Russell also influenced Cage, in his emphasis of percussion. During the 1930s, predating Cage's main work, Russell's percussion works called for vernacular textures such as Jack Daniels bottles, suitcases, and Haitian drums, as well as "prepared pianos", although it is not clear how specifically he wanted the piano to be prepared.
  One notable performance of his "Fugue for eight percussion instruments" took place in 1933, with the ubiquitous and influential critic-writer-performer Nicholas Slonimsky conducting. The fugue was performed at Carnegie Hall on a program that included Varèse's iconic percussion composition "Ionisation." These performances took place under the auspices of the Pan-American Association of Composers, an organization that was composed of Cowell, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Edgard Varèse, Slonimsky, and other luminaries of American ultramodernism. Russell, on occasion, performed other Pan-Am composers' chamber works on violin. In 1990, Russell's oeuvre was performed integrally, assisted by Cage, in New York, leading to a recording of Russell's extant works by Essential Music.
caption: New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra performing in 1991, with Bill Russell at right on violin
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "QuickTime 7.1.6", "Image DateTime": "2007:06:12 23:49:41", "Image HostComputer": "Mac OS X 10.3.9", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "296", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5295", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Centered"}