JMR Succeeds EK at CPO

John Morris Russell

At a press conference at noon today (Dec. 6) in the Music Hall lobby, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra announced that John Morris Russell will be the next conductor of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra.

 Russell, 50, assistant/associate conductor of the CSO and Pops from 1995-2006, succeeds Pops founder Erich Kunzel, who died of cancer in September, 2009.  (The Cincinnati Pops Orchestra is the CSO in red blazers.)

Music director of the Windsor Symphony in Ontario, Canada since 2001, Russell, was a co-founder of the CSO’s “Sound Discoveries” educational program and its “Classical Roots, Spiritual Heights” series at African-American churches.  The Cleveland native created and conducted the CSO’s “Home for the Holidays” show at the Taft Theater from 1996-2003 (the show was canceled for budgetary reasons in 2004), and was a popular figure conducting the CSO and Pops at the orchestra's summer home at Riverbend Music Center.

Russell, who opened the 2010-11 Pops season in September with IdinaMenzel, will be on the podium Dec. 10-12 at Music Hall for the Pops holiday show starring Debby Boone.  For tickets and information , call (513) 381-3300, or visit www.cincinnatipops.org