Patrick Gardner's performances have been acclaimed by New York audiences, critics and an international roster of composers whose orchestral and choral works he has conducted.In addition to his duties as director of the Riverside Choral Society, Mr. Gardner is also the director of choral activities at Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts, where he conducts the Rutgers University Kirkpatrick Choir and the Rutgers Glee Club.

This coming season Mr. Gardner will prepare RCS and the Kirkpatrick Choir for Lincoln Center performances of Shostakovich’s Second and Third Symphonies with the Kirov Orchestra and Rotterdam Philharmonic, Valery Gergiev conducting. In March, the Riverside Choral Society Chamber Singers will follow up this past summer’s critically acclaimed performances of Handel’s L’Allegro for the Mark Morris Dance Group at Lincoln Center with performances of Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas that will be presented with Mark Morris’ choreography as part of the MMDG’s twenty-fifth anniversary season at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. In November Mr. Gardner will conduct Haydn’s Creation at Rutgers University and in May of ’06 he will conduct the Brahms Requiem with Riverside Choral Society at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall.

Last season Mr. Gardner prepared RCS for critically acclaimed performances of Mahler’s Second Symphony with Gergiev and the Kirov Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and the NJPAC. In October he conducted Handel’s Opus 4 Organ Concerti and, the Coronation Anthem Number 3 with Musica Raritana, a period instrument orchestra of professional instrumentalists and graduate students at Rutgers University, and conducted the Sacred Service of Mario Castelnouvo-Tedesco at New York City's Museum of Jewish Heritage.

Recently Mr. Gardner conducted the Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 1 and the Schubert Fifth Symphony with the Rutgers Summer Festival Orchestra, the professional orchestra in residence at the University, and the Haydn Symphony No. 88 and the Mozart D Minor Piano Concerto in Burlington, New Jersey. In other recent orchestral concerts he has conducted the Ibert Flute Concerto, Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, and the Fauré Pavane. In October of 2003, Mr. Gardner prepared the Rutgers University Kirkpatrick Choir for a performance of Kurt Weill’s The Eternal Road conducted by Gerard Schwarz at the Manhattan School of Music.

Mr. Gardner has prepared the Rutgers University Glee Club to join with the Philadelphia Singers for a performance of Schönberg's Gurrelieder with Sir Simon Rattle and the Philadelphia Orchestra, guided Riverside Choral Society in its radio debut as part of the Wall-to-Wall Kurt Weill Festival at Symphony Space and prepared RCS for their appearances in Avery Fisher Hall, singing Robert Schumann's Das Paradies und die Peri, Strauss’ reworking of Mozart’s Idomeneo and other works for the Mostly Mozart Festival. In the summer of 2002 he prepared the Riverside Choral Society to sing Beethoven's Choral Fantasy at Lincoln Center with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, with Robert Levin at the keyboard. In the last two summers he returned to the Mostly Mozart Festival, preparing RCS for its performances of the Haydn Creation and the Mozart Requiem with the MMF Orchestra, Louis Langree, conductor.

Active in premiering new music, he has won the praise of such notable composers as Lukas Foss, John Harbison, William Bolcom, Lou Harrison and Leslie Bassett. Mr. Gardner was the chorus master for the internationally acclaimed Robert Altman production of Stravinsky's Rake's Progress at the Opera de Lille in France. He has recorded for Albany, Ethereal and Folkways records. His recent recording of Miriam Gideon’s Sacred Service with the Rutgers University Kirkpatrick Choir will be released as part of the Naxos Records America Classics series, joining their 2004 Naxos release of Samuel Adler’s Five Sephardic Songs in music stores nationwide.