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American baritone Robert Gardner has appeared with numerous opera houses and symphony orchestras in the U.S., Europe, and Asia including New York City Opera, Washington National Opera, Bavarian National Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Aspen Music Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, Palm Beach Opera, Edmonton Opera, the Munich Philharmonic, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Colorado Symphony, the San Diego, Santa Rosa, New Haven and Kansas City Symphonies, the Northeast Pennsylvania Philharmonic and the Daejeon Symphony in S. Korea. Originally from Denver, Colorado, he has been described as "a superb young artist" by WGBH Radio, the New York Times calls him "robust...impressive...brilliantly effective...the score presented with a proprietary authority," an "electrifying performance" says NPR Sunday Morning Edition. The Hartford Courant hails "a talent of a high order," "his lithe, burnished baritone a consistent pleasure" and the Kansas City Star raves "finally we heard someone sing with intelligence, passion and bravura... unusually gripping."
Opera credits include debuts as Marcello in La Boheme at New York City Opera and Knoxville Opera, Sharpless in Palm Beach Opera’s Madame Butterfly, and Zurga in Madison Opera’s The Pearl Fishers. He has appeared as Robert Storch in R. Strauss’ domestic comedy Intermezzo as a guest debut artist for Aspen Music Festival under the baton of David Zinman, and recently supported the casts of the U.S. premiere of Ades’ The Tempest as Prospero and R. Strauss’ Salome as Jokanaan for Santa Fe Opera. He has appeared as Silvano (Ballo) and Morales (Carmen) for the Bavarian National Opera, and has served as a leading baritone for American Opera Projects for several years. He has appeared as Germont in La Traviata, as Eugene Onegin, Michele and Gianni Schicchi in Il Trittico, Belcore in L'Elisir d'Amore, Sid in Albert Herring, as well as the Kaiser von Atlantis.
Recent concert performances include Carnegie Hall premieres with MidAmerica Productions, as well as with hosts Dawn Upshaw and John Harbison in appearances for the Weill Institute, Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Choral Society of Grace Church (Union Square, NYC) with whom he also appeared in R. V. Williams' Fantasia on Christmas Carols and appeared again May 2007 in his Dona Nobis Pacem in a spring "Concert for Peace." He sang Ein Deutches Requiem with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Carmina Burana in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center with the National Chorale, and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with the Lexington Philharmonic.
Recent recital engagements include New York City, Boston, Dallas, Paris, Marseille, and Denver for the Pro Musicis Foundation with collaborative pianist Lydia Brown, and for the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York and the Austrian Embassy in Washington D.C. singing Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder and Das Lied von der Erde with collaborative pianist Thomas Bagwell.
Mr. Gardner is a roster artist of the American Modern Ensemble in New York, singing premieres in 2008 by John Harbison and Aaron Jay Kernis. Other new music projects include an evening-length work being written for him by Schirmer composer Gabriela Lena Frank for piano/orchestra and baritone; a unique setting of texts by Nicaraguan poet Pablo Antonio Cuadra entitled The Songs of Cifar and the Sweet Sea, being given a premiere this summer at Music@Menlo. Robert has also been instrumental in the creation of a new opera by composer Gerald Cohen, giving partial premieres of his new opera Sarah and Hagar in the role of Father Abraham, and has even appeared at Birdland in New York with jazz sensation Hilary Kole.
Gardner is a featured artist on the 6-CD set of the complete songs of Charles Ives presently being released by Naxos Records. He has performed on NPR's Weekend Edition, Boston’s WGBH radio, New York’s WQXR radio, Denver’s KVOD radio, and on the A&E channel’s Breakfast with the Arts, as well as on several seasonal PBS broadcasts.
Robert Gardner is the 2007 winner of the Lili Boulanger Memorial Award, chosen from five worldwide nominees (chiefly composers, conductors and instrumentalists) and by the foundation started in 1936 by famed teacher-pianist-conductor Nadia Boulanger, is considered this year's "musician of exceptional talent and integrity." A 2001 Pro Musicis International Award winner, he is also the winner of the 1999 William Matheus Sullivan Foundation Award, the 2000 Gerda Lissner Award, and the 2000 Denver Lyric Opera Guild Competition. He trained at Yale Opera of the Yale University School of Music and participated in young artist programs with Santa Fe Opera, the Bavarian National Opera in Munich, and the Steans Institute for Young Artists at Ravinia in Chicago. He is a member of the Society of American Fight Directors and has choreographed safe, yet effective stage conflicts professionally, and is a professional animal trainer in his spare time.
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