Throughout his time at CCM, he championed Early Music with successful productions of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, Music of Love and War, and the recent CCM Monteverdi Festival, all integrating CCM students with professional Early Music guest artists and coaches. In 2014-16, he produced The Shakespeare Quadricentennial, CCM’s two-year commemoration of the playwright's legacy through choral music, featuring CCM Chamber Choir premieres of three newly commissioned works on Shakespeare texts by composers Judith Bingham, Dominick DiOrio, and Jake Runestad. In the 2019-20 season, Rivers conducted CCM’s Chamber Choir in Dallapiccola’s Canti di Prigionia and was scheduled to conduct Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 (April 2020, cancelled due to COVID-19).  

 Since 1974, Rivers has served as director of music for Hyde Park’s Knox Presbyterian Church, where his Knox Choir has commissioned and premiered 12 new works, offered Cincinnati premieres of J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ, and Vaughan Williams’ Hodie, and has been acclaimed by Cincinnati Magazine as "Best Church Music in Cincinnati." Rivers has led the Knox Choir and orchestra in J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio (December 2019) and James MacMillan’s Seven Last Words from the Cross (April 2010), to much praise from the Cincinnati community. 

 A coveted guest conductor, Earl Rivers has lead South Korea’s top professional choirs — Inchon City Chorale, Changwon City Chorale, Suwon City Chorale, and Gangneung Civic Choir in the Korean premiere of Arvo Part's Berliner Mass and has lead Festival Choirs and Orchestras in Syros, Greece, Vienna, Florence, Paris, and at New Yorl City’s beloved Carnegie Hall. He has taught conducting, coached choirs, and presented lectures and masterclasses in China, South Korea, and has appeared as a guest at the Taipei International Choral Festival in Taiwan. Rivers served as Artistic Director USA for the World Choir Games in Shaoxing, China. More recently he has served as Music Panelist for the National Endowment of the Arts, and has led more than 40 years of programs for conventions of the American Choral Directors Association. He has also produced and conducted premieres of staged productions of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion, and Honegger’s Joan of Arc at the Stake for acclaimed American University. 

 Rivers has received Choral America’s Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Choral Art, honoring a lifetime of significant contributions to the professional choral art, and Chorus America’s Director Laureate Award, an honorary title recognizing an individual who has demonstrated extraordinary leadership and has had a significant impact on the choral field. Rivers is also a long-time member of the Board of Directors of Chorus America, the national service organization to develop and promote professional, volunteer, and youth choruses.