Steven Russell

Steven Russell is the owner of Becoming Sound LLC, which was founded in 2013 to guide those on the path to health and wellness of body, mind, and spirit through music, massage therapy, and yoga. He has been the Director of the Garden State Philharmonic Chorus since 2017. He has conducted the Chorus and Orchestra in concerts each December which include Handel’s Messiah, John Rutter’s Mass of the Children, and the annual Fourth of July Concert on the square in downtown Toms River, and has conducted the Philharmonic in performances of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, and Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, with the Atlantic City Ballet.

Steven served as the Artistic Director for the New Jersey Gay Men’s Chorus, the Rutgers University Queens Chorale, the Shrewsbury Chorale, the Monmouth Civic Chorus on their Scandinavian Tour, and the All Shore Chorus in 2003 in an all-American program featuring Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. Steven founded the Ravine Crossing Chamber Chorale, and was the Founding President of the New Jersey Choral Consortium. Steven has served as the chair of the Repertoire and Standards Committee for Community Choruses for the Eastern Division of the American Choral Directors Association, and served the same for the New Jersey chapter.

Steven has served as Director of Music for the Parish of St. Thomas More, Manalapan, St. Mary’s Church, Colts Neck, and St. Joseph’s Church, Keyport. He served on the Executive Board of the Monmouth Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. Steven currently is a substitute organist and director throughout New Jersey and the surrounding area.

Steven taught vocal, instrumental, and general music from 1983-1988 at St. John Vianney High School, St. Joseph’s School, Keyport, and for the Hazlet Township Public Schools.

Steven has a Bachelor of Music in Music Education degree magna cum laude from Westminster Choir College in Princeton, where he studied with Joseph Flummerfelt and Frauke Haasemann, and a Master of Music in Choral Conducting from the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, where he studied with Richard Westenburg.

Steven is a Licensed Massage Therapist, having graduated from the American Institute of Alternative Medicine in East Brunswick, and is a Certified Yoga Teacher, having studied with Sri Dharma Mittra in NYC. He was half of the piano duo, Polymania, from 1994-2009. You can hear him perform on his YouTube channel, hemiola711, or visit his website, becoming-sound.com.