Risha Russon, Assistant Director, is a private piano and organ teacher and is currently serving as the State Chair over Performance Evaluations through the Utah Music Teachers Association.
Risha’s love of music is inspired by her wonderful family’s examples. From a young age, she wanted to learn to play the piano. She remembers hearing her mother play songs from The Man from Snowy River and singing Christmas songs together each year.
For a short time, Risha was taught by her mother before becoming a student of Lorelei Andrews and then Denise Frost. She began exploring the organ with her mother before high school graduation. Risha participated in high school band and choir as well in addition to numerous extracurricular activities. She participated in All-State choir as a soprano for two years.
After graduating from high school, Risha studied Economics and History with a management emphasis at Utah State University. Although not majoring in music, she continued her musical studies at USU. At this time, she studied organ with Lynn Thomas and Mildred Camire. She continued with them for six years and served as an organist for church services for part of that time.
Risha now resides in northern Utah with her husband and their four cats. She enjoys teaching piano and organ, playing flute in her community band, and finding other ways to share her talents. She is currently learning Kalimba and hopes to learn the Theremin someday.