Multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and singer, Ben Russell loves to create music of all kinds with musicians around the world. Living in NYC for close to 20 years, Ben performs with countless artists on the stage, in the studio, on the screen, on soundtracks, on Broadway, and in concert halls big and small. He can be heard on GRAMMY-winning albums, on Emmy-winning soundtracks, on late night television, and on popular streaming playlists receiving millions of listens per month. He performs with “impressive expressivity and musicality” (The Strad) combined with “spiky, down-home fiddle and soaring violin lines” (Apple Music Classical). Ben resides in Brooklyn, NY but also tours extensively around the globe with orchestras, small ensembles, dance companies and pop artists from multiple genres.

Most recently, Ben has been collaborating with Max Richter, performing his popular albums, Blue Notebooks and In a Landscape, to sold-out audiences around the world. Ben recorded Max’s 8-hour work titled Sleep and performs the work with Max in its entirety for audiences worldwide. Other recording and touring collaborations include artists such as Johann Johannson (on Orphée and Drone Mass), Miho Hazama (on m_unit: Beyond Orbits), Björk (on Vulnicura Strings), Sufjan Stevens (on Planetarium), Blonde Redhead (on 3 O’Clock), and Carla Kihlstedt (on 26 Little Deaths). Ben also appears on a diversity of albums such as The Suburbs (Arcade Fire), No No No and Study of Losses (Beirut), A Lad’s Love (Brian Giebler), Divers (Joanna Newsom), The Age of Adz (Sufjan Stevens), Dirty Projectors (Dirty Projectors), Trouble Will Find Me (The National), Lumiere (Dustin O’Halloran) and Where Are The Arms (Gabriel Kahane).

Ben has co-created several ensembles that vary widely in genre. His duo, Hinterlands, released their drone-folk, improv-filled, debut album in 2025. Their sound-scape musical style has been used for soundtracks in several indie films, and they often create live soundtracks for silent film. Ben’s longest running ensemble was a classical string quartet, Bryant Park Quartet. The quartet taught chamber music to school and university students around the U.S. and created a K-12 summer chamber music camp at Stony Brook University. Ben also co-created a popular classical crossover band, Founders, where all members sang and wrote their own arrangements. Their albums were a mix of classical, jazz and singer-songwriter style music. Ben’s newest ensemble, Few of a Kind, seeks to continue in that same vein, but with new members Vienna Teng, Brandon Ridenour, Andrew Gutauskas, and Yousif Sheronick. Their self titled EP will be released in early 2026.

When he is at home in NYC, Ben often performs in Broadway shows, most recently holding a chair at GYPSY starring Audra McDonald. He can also been seen on several stages premiering new music, such as National Sawdust, Le Poisson Rouge, Joe’s Pub, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Kaufman Music Center, and Alice Tully Hall. He enjoys performing with dance companies Mark Morris Dance Group and Lar Lubovich, with choirs Trinity Wall Street Choir and The Crossing, and with new music ensembles ACME (American Contemporary Music Ensemble), Present Music and Ensemble Echappe. Ben has appeared on Saturday Night Live with Paul McCartney, on The Late Show with David Letterman, and Late Night with Seth Meyers. He also appeared on Tiny Desk with Max Richter, and with Philip Selway (from Radiohead).

In 2014, Ben recorded Partita No. 2 for Violin in D Minor by J.S. Bach in The Crypt of the Church of Intersession in Manhattan, in honor of a close relative that had recently passed away. Ben decided not to edit the recording, wanting the natural acoustic of The Crypt to convey the raw emotion of the work. Around the same time, Ben recorded a live solo album of original music for violin and voice, exhibiting his new venture as singer-songwriter. Before moving to NYC, Ben won the Principal 2nd Violin Chair of the Portland Symphony Orchestra in Maine, a position he held for 8 years. Ben received his Masters of Music in Violin Performance from New England Conservatory, his Bachelors of Music from Biola University, and studied Violin Performance at the Amsterdam Conservatory.