Artistic Staff

David Long is currently in his 19th season as artistic director and conductor of The Chattanooga Bach Choir. In addition, he serves as Director of Music/Choir Master at Grace Episcopal Church, Chattanooga, as well as conducting the Tennessee Festival Singers.
During his tenure, David Long has strategically developed the Bach Choir’s masterworks choral-orchestral concert offerings, featuring Bach’s Mass in B Minor and St. John Passion, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, Beethoven’s Mass in C, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil, among others. He has expanded the Bach Choir’s seasonal offerings with an ongoing Cantata Series, as well as adding to the repertoire with 20th & 21st century works by Britten, Gjeilo, Lauridsen, and Whitaker.
David Long is a graduate of Elon College and holds Master’s Degrees in Performance-Orchestral Conducting (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga) and Church Music (Southern Theological Seminary). He has participated in a number of premier conducting events, including the Oregon Bach Festival, where he was selected as a conducting fellow, and participated in master classes with Helmuth Rilling. David was also a prize winner in the 2001 Symphonic Conducting Workshop and Competition at the Accademia Dell’Arte of Florence/Arezzo.

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.

Sheri Peck is a native of Marietta, GA. At the age of 5 she began her violin training with Lynn Baughman at the Suzuki School of the Arts in Atlanta. In high school, she studied with Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse and toured the U.S. and abroad as a soloist and member of the New England Youth Ensemble (based in South Lancaster, MA). In 1989, she joined the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera as section first violinist. In 1992, she completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in Violin Performance from Southern Adventist University (Collegedale, TN) where she studied with Mark Reneau. In that same year, she was named principal second violin of the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera, a position which she currently holds.