Alexander Russell

Alexander Russell (1880–1953) was an American composer, organist and the first Frick Professor of Music for Princeton University. He is most remembered today as the long time organ impresario for the Wanamaker Department Stores. Early life George Alexander Russell, Jr., was born on October 2, 1880, in Franklin, Tennessee, son of a Presbyterian minister. He received his first musical instruction at age 10, from his mother who was an accomplished musician. Education He was enrolled at Syracuse University at age 16 and graduated with highest honors in 1901. His teachers included organ, George A. Parker, piano, Adolf Frey, and composition William Berwald. Russell was subsequently appointed to the faculty at Syracuse and for the next four years he was professor of piano and organ as well as assuming the position of organist at several local churches. During this time he made the acquaintance of young organ virtuoso Charles M. Courboin, whose career he would eventually manage and with whom he was to stage many organ concerts at the Wanamaker stores beginning with the rededication concert of the Philadelphia organ in 1919. In 1906 he went to Europe to study in Berlin and Paris. He first studied piano with Leopold Godowsky with whom he acquired expert technique and interpretation. He then went on to Harold Bauer. Russell also studied organ, composition, orchestration and fugue with Charles Marie Widor and composition with Edgar Stillman Kelley, an American then resident abroad. It was under Kelly that Russell conceived the ambition to become a serious composer.