Artistic Staff

Now in his 14th season, David Long was appointed Artistic Director and Conductor of the Chattanooga Bach Choir in 2005, succeeding James Greasby, Founding Director. He currently serves as Director of Music/Choir Master at Grace Episcopal Church, Chattanooga. He also conducts the Tennessee Festival Singers and is a frequent guest conductor with the Chattanooga-based Voci Virili Men’s Consort.

During his tenure, David Long has expanded the repertoire of the Chattanooga Bach Choir to include an annual series featuring Bach’s Cantatas. Additionally, he has developed the scope of the Bach Choir’s masterworks choral-orchestral concert offerings with performances of Bach’s Mass in B Minor and St. John Passion, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, Beethoven’s Mass in C, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Handel’s Messiah, and Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil. Long has also added to the Choir’s contemporary repertoire with 20th and 21st century works by Britten, Lauridson, Gjeilo, and Whitaker.

David Long is a graduate of Elon College and holds Master’s degrees in Performance-Orchestral Conducting from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Church Music from Southern Theological Seminary. David has participated in the Beyond the Baton Workshop Seminar, the Conductors’ Institute of the University of South Carolina, the Vakhtang Jordania International Conducting Competition, the Pierre Monteux School for Conductors and Orchestra Musicians, and the Oregon Bach Festival, where he was selected as a conducting fellow, studying in masterclasses under Helmuth Rilling. In 2001, he was chosen to participate in the Symphonic Conducting Workshop and Competition at the Accademia dell’ Arte of Florence/Arezzo, where he was a prize winner and conducted the Accademia dell’ Arte Orchestra in Florence, Italy.

David resides in Chattanooga with his wife, Karen, a media relations specialist for Memorial Hospital, and their three children, Megan, Jacob, and Cassidy. He enjoys bicycle riding with his family on the many trails and greenways along the Tennessee River and Chickamauga Creek.

Karla Fowkes graduated from Southern Adventist University in 1979. The following year she studied at the Hochschule fur Musik in Vienna, Austria with Peter Planyavsky. She earned a Master of Music degree in organ performance at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 1986. She is the Organist/Choirmaster at Christ Church, Episcopal, a position she has held since 1992. She enjoys performing regularly with the Chattanooga Bach Choir.

Mark Reneau has been concertmaster of the Chattanooga Bach Choir Orchestra since the 1980s, and at the same time he was Associate Concertmaster of the CSO. He has been concertmaster of the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra since 1998. Other orchestras in which he has played include the North Carolina Symphony, the Nashville Chamber Orchestra, Nashville Symphony, and the Charleston Symphony. He has participated in the Cullowhee, Aspen, Appalachian Summer and Bellingham music festivals.