Russell Wharton is an Associate Instructor in the Percussion Department at Indiana University, a bass drum technician for The Cavaliers Drum & Bugle Corps, and a freelance performer, composer, and arranger.
Russell involvement in drum corps began with The Cavaliers, where he was a member of the bass drum section from 2008-2012, including the Fred Sanford-award-winning 2011 percussion section. He began teaching the corps in 2015, and since then he has helped lead the bass drum section to new levels of achievement and excellence. He is highly in demand as an educator and clinician in the marching arts, and in November of 2018, Russell and The Cavaliers bass drum section will present a clinic at PASIC. Russell has also taught for the Boston Crusaders, Monarch Independent, Cavaliers Indoor Percussion, Keller High School, and numerous other high schools in Texas.
When not teaching drum corps, Russell spends most of his summer writing custom percussion arrangements for high school bands. He primarily writes for Texas schools but is also active in Michigan, North Carolina, and Oklahoma. He also frequently composes original works for solo and chamber percussion, and is published by Tapspace Publications.
Russell graduated from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in spring of 2018 with a Master’s degree in Music Performance and an Outside Area in Composition, and will return in 2018 to pursue a Performer’s Diploma. During his Master’s at IU, he performed in the Philharmonic Orchestra, Symphony, Afro-Cuban Folkloric Ensemble, Brazilian Percussion Ensemble, and the Chamber Percussion Ensemble. He serves at an Associate Instructor within the department, and teaches lessons and the Percussion Techniques class to music education majors. He was also active as a chamber percussion performer in the greater Indianapolis area with the quartet “four/one percussion”, formed with three other graduate students. At IU, Russell studied percussion with John Tafoya, Kevin Bobo, and Michael Spiro, and studied composition with Aaron Travers and P.Q. Phan.