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Alex Gartner

All-State Chorus Coordinator

Alex Gartner is an award-winning conductor, composer, author, clinician, collaborative pianist, and passionate advocate for the arts. Through his work from the podium, the piano, and on printed music, he seeks to illuminate the transformative potential of music to empower one's truest self, shed light on relevant social issues, and create environments and experiences that propel music education and the arts across generational, socioeconomic, and perceptual lines.

Mr. Gartner serves as the Artistic & Executive Director of the Pensacola Children's Chorus (FL), a community-based youth choir comprised of 9 resident ensemble and 5 regional choirs that account for 300 singers. Combined, these choirs and other musical programs reach an annual audience of nearly 25,000 people, including 5,000 youth, from across Northwest Florida and Southwest Alabama. Supported by a team of 15 full- and part-time staff and a robustly generous donor base, the Pensacola Children's Chorus (PCC) serves as the premiere performing arts experience for children in grades 1-12 in Florida's panhandle. His innovative leadership of the organization earned him the 2025 Louis Botto Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship granted Chorus America, becoming the first leader of a youth organization to receive the award in its 27-year history.

A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Mr. Gartner previously served as the Richard W. Wesp Assistant Director of the Cincinnati Youth Choir (CYC). Under the mentorship of Robyn Lana, founder and artistic director, Gartner discovered the potential that exists in young voices, one that has underpinned his career. His experience with CYC was only heightened by the tutelage of his high school choral director, Mr. Richard Wesp, who had an lauded 57-year career teaching middle and high school in the Cincinnati area.

Outside of the sphere of children and youth, Mr. Gartner has served as a leader in many community choirs and church music departments. Presently serving as the Principal Organist for First Baptist Church of Pensacola (FL), he has held positions as Director of Traditional Music at Epiphany United Methodist Church (Loveland, OH) and Director of Music at St. James Episcopal Church (Westwood, OH). He also directed choirs in the Forest Hills School District (Anderson Township, Ohio), taught general music for an independent school in Mason, Ohio, and served as the Artistic Director for the Forest-Aires Women's Chorus (Anderson Township, Ohio). These experiences, combined with his considerable work with children's and community youth choirs, helped Mr. Gartner develop an appreciation and proclivity for the administrative aspects of running community-based choirs, a cause he champions in his book The Business of Choir with co-author Emily Williams Burch (GIA Publications, June 2022).


Alex Gartner

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