Southwestern College

David Gardner, D.M.A.

Position

Associate Professor of Music, Director of Choirs, Voice, Conducting

Email Address

david.gardner@sckans.edu

Phone

(620) 229-6302

Bio

D.M.A., University of Arizona

Dr. Gardner conducts the A Cappella Choir and the Southwestern College Singers, as well as teaching Conducting, Vocal Diction, Music History, and Private Voice.  He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2005 Southwestern College Fassnacht Outstanding Faculty Award, and a second-place finish in the 2001 American Choral Directors Association National Student Conducting Awards Competition.  He is active both regionally and nationally as a guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator.

Dr. Gardner’s Carnegie Hall conducting debut was in March of 2005, and he appeared there again on March 19, 2010, conducting Mozart’s Solemn Vespers.  He has performed as a vocal soloist, conductor, and chorus member with Wichita Grand Opera, and has prepared choruses for the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, Wichita Grand Opera, the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, and the University of Arizona Symphony.  In March of 2008 he led the Southwestern College choirs in a series of well-received concerts across Italy.  The tour culminated in a performance during Easter Sunday Mass at the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice.

Other past projects include performing in concert and recording with Linda Ronstadt (A Merry Little Christmas, Elektra Records), conducting the world premier performance of “Send Down the Rain” by New York composer Andrew Teirstein, and organizing and conducting 350 singers and instrumentalists in a memorial performance of the Mozart Requiem on September 11, 2002. 

David Gardner’s principal conducting mentors have been Maurice Skones and Bruce Chamberlain.  In 2002, he was selected as one of 14 international conductors to lead the Grammy Award winning Oregon Bach Festival Choir and Orchestra under the tutelage of Maestro Helmuth Rilling in the Oregon Bach Festival Masterclass in Conducting.  In addition to his academic work, Dr. Gardner has spent more than two decades in music ministry, serving churches of various denominations.

Dr. Gardner is a member of the American Choral Directors Association, and is the President of the Kansas Choral Directors Association.  He is also a member of the Music Educators National Conference and a charter member of the National Collegiate Choral Organization.  He lives in Winfield with his wife and four daughters.