Robert Boardman has been named Music Director for the Life Sciences Orchestra for the 2009-2010 season. In the summer of 2008, Mr. Boardman founded the Ann Arbor Repertory Orchestra – an orchestra which performs during the summer season and serves as a venue for orchestral musicians to read numerous works from the standard repertoire. During the summer of 2009, he served as Marin Alsop's Assistant Conductor at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, in Santa Cruz, CA.

From 2004-2007, Mr. Boardman was Music Director of the University of Michigan Campus Orchestras, serving as Assistant Conductor of the University Symphony Orchestra, University Philharmonia Orchestra, and Opera Theatre. Under his direction, the campus orchestra rosters doubled, regularly performing contemporary music by Higdon, Hovhaness, Corigliano, and Torke, among others.

Mr. Boardman has conducted 10 World Premieres and over 30 orchestras nationwide, including the Houston Symphony, Spokane Symphony Orchestra, and Cabrillo Festival Orchestra. In May 2006, Columbia Artists appointed him as Assistant Conductor for Howard Shore's film score masterpiece "The Lord of the Rings Symphony" for which Mr. Boardman has assisted in over 30 performances, including a tour of Germany. In this position, he has worked with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Florida Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, among others.

In 2007, Mr. Boardman became a Doctor of Musical Arts (ABD) in Orchestral Conducting at the U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance, where he studied with Kenneth Kiesler. As a conductor and composer, Robert has a passion for contemporary classical music and seeks to reinvigorate today's audiences by finding new ways in which the orchestra can become a vital social force.