Research

Russell’s research examines issues relating to improvisation, composition, musical communication and music education. He studies the creative processes involved in music making, researching musical collaborations and how musicians’ social environments and personal histories affect creativity. Specific research topics include contemporary musical performance, graphic composition, jazz studies, free improvisation and distributed creativity in composition. Since 2017, he has collaborated with Something Smashing, an interdisciplinary research and performance collective that explores relationships between music, dance, and improvisation. He received a Bachelors and Masters degree in Jazz Studies from the University of North Texas and a PhD in Creative Music Practice from the University of Edinburgh.

 
 

PRESENTATIONS

Wimbish, R. (2019). Controlled Freedoms: How graphic score composers use anomalous notations to shape improvisational performance. Paper and performance presented at the Notation for Improvisers Conference, London, UK. 

Wimbish, R. (2018). How do you play that? A Performer’s outlook on graphic score interpretation. Paper and performance presented at the Doctors in Performance 3rd Festival Conference of Music Performance and Artistic Research, Vilnius, LT.

Wimbish, R. (2018). ‘Is this your composition or is this some sort of collaboration?’: What a professional musician’s attitude towards graphic notation can tell us about composer-performer relationships, musical identities and establishing stake in the shadow of the Western classical canon. Paper presented at the Performance Studies Network Conference, Oslo, NO. 

Wimbish, R. (2018). Communication Methods in Graphic Score Performance. Paper presented at the 1st International Academic Conference on Music, Communication, and Performance, Montecassiano, IT.