Russell Brower

Russell Brower is an American composer and audio director who led Blizzard Entertainment's audio department from 2005 to 2017. He wrote music for World of Warcraft from the late patches of the original game through Legion, including the main themes of six expansions, and oversaw the sound and music of StarCraft II, Diablo III and Hearthstone. Before games, he won three Emmy Awards for sound editing in television animation.

Career before Blizzard

Brower began in television sound. As a sound designer and editor at Warner Bros. Animation and DiC Entertainment, he worked on series including Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs and Batman: The Animated Series. Wikipedia lists three Emmy wins for sound editing: for the 1990 TV film Challenger, for the animated Back to the Future series in 1992, and for Batman in 1996.

He then worked in theme parks and games. At Walt Disney Imagineering he was a principal media designer and music director. At NovaLogic he served as audio director, with credits on Delta Force: Black Hawk Down (2003) and Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising (2004).

Work on World of Warcraft

Brower joined Blizzard in 2005, the year after World of Warcraft launched, as director of audio and video. He later became senior director of audio and lead composer. Blizzard's own press biographies describe him as having more than 30 years of experience in TV, film, theme parks and games, and as a member of the boards of the Society of Composers and Lyricists and the Game Audio Network Guild.

His first contributions to the game came during the original game's content patches. Warcraft Wiki credits him, together with Matt Uelmen, with new music for patch 1.9, which opened the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj and the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj and Ahn'Qiraj raids, and for patch 1.11, which brought Naxxramas to the Eastern Plaguelands. These are among the last music additions to the 1.12-era game.

From The Burning Crusade on, Brower wrote or co-wrote the title music for every expansion through Legion:

He has said that "Lament of the Highborne," written with Derek Duke and associated in the game with Sylvanas Windrunner, was the first piece he wrote for World of Warcraft. In April 2014 the Wrath of the Lich King piece "Invincible" entered the Classic FM Hall of Fame, a UK listener poll of classical music, at number 52, his first appearance on that list.

As head of the audio team he also oversaw music for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (2010) and Heart of the Swarm (2013), Diablo III (2012) and Reaper of Souls (2014), and Hearthstone (2014). He spoke about the music of Reaper of Souls at the Game Developers Conference in 2015. Cataclysm added a Wildhammer dwarf bard who shares his name, Russell Brower, to Kirthaven in the Twilight Highlands.

Later career

On July 21, 2017, Brower announced that his position at Blizzard had been eliminated as part of what he called a "sound de-centralization initiative," after 12 years with the company. In his farewell post he said he was proud of the team he had built, that he might continue writing for Blizzard as a freelancer, and that he was working on a solo album, with the first track recorded that June with 51 studio musicians in Los Angeles. He also had Video Games Live concert appearances planned in Europe, China and Brazil.

Since leaving he has worked as a freelance composer. His later credits include music for Arena of Valor and The International 2019 music pack for Dota 2, both in 2019, and Tarisland (2024).

Sources

• Russell Brower, Wikipedia
• Russell Brower, Warcraft Wiki
• Russell Brower (NPC), Warcraft Wiki
• Composer Russell Brower leaves Blizzard after 12 years, Blizzard Watch (2017)
• BlizzCon 2013 Warlords of Draenor press kit, Blizzard Entertainment
• Who made Warcraft's soundtrack?, Engadget (2007)
• Russell Brower on Twitter, on Lament of the Highborne (2019)