[3] He also knew many musicians, singers, conductors and composers, including Mary Garden, André Caplet, Felix Weingartner, Landon Ronald, Freya Stark and Thelma Reiss.
He initially trained as a cellist, attending the Guildhall School of Music, where he was taught by W. H. Squire, and later had lessons with Guilhermina Suggia and Felix Salmond.
He played quintets professionally with the Léner Quartet in the late 1920s, and gave the earliest performances in England of cello concertos by Paul Hindemith and Arthur Honegger.
[5][6] In 1945, he trained as a hospital social worker,[2][4] and is described by Phyllis Willmott in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as the "first male student in an entirely female profession".
[8] After his hospital career, Russell began to play the cello in public again and organised concerts of chamber music for children,[4] and informal soirées with musician friends at the couple's home in Cheyne Walk, described by David Piachaud in The Guardian as "unrehearsed and uninhibited" and "usually brilliant".