Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist Music

Director of Music and Principal Organist: Mark Thomas
Associate Organist and Director of Children’s Choir: Larry Long
Music Administrative Assistant: Rebecca Hickok

Organ Curator and Recording Engineer: Brian Reed
Visiting Organist: Alex Collier

Mark Thomas

Over the last two decades, Mark Thomas has worked as a liturgical musician, conductor, producer, composer, organist, jazz pianist, electronic keyboardist and studio musician. A cathedral musician for seventeen years, Mr. Thomas held posts in Michigan and Maine before beginning service to South Carolina’s Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Charleston, autumn of 2000.

He conducts the Cathedral Choir, Girls Chorus, Women’s Schola and Men’s Schola (the latter three he founded in 2000). He also oversees the cantors, music staff, over 75 volunteers, Cathedral Concerts and the Cathedral’s interaction with Charleston’s annual Piccolo Spoleto Festival. He also serves as music director for Saint Mary of the Assumption, the first Catholic Cathedral in all of Georgia and the Carolinas, where he conducts the Schola Cantorum.

Throughout the 1990s, Mr. Thomas produced numerous concerts of new music throughout the U.S. presenting premieres by composers such as Gavin Bryars, Michael Nyman, Arvo Pärt and Philip Glass. During the last decade, he has focused his energies more on writing and conducting sacred music for concert and liturgy.

His compositions have received notable international performances at Saint Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, the Basilicas of Saints John and Paul in Venice and Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, Saint Mary’s Cathedral in Dublin, Rijks Museum in Amsterdam, Biojman van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, Saint Stephen Cathedral in Budapest, the National Shrine in Washington DC, Chicago’s Divine Word Center, Indiana University, Charleston’s Piccolo Spoleto Festival, Trinity Church in Boston, and the U.S. Cathedrals of The Holy Name (Chicago), Saint Patrick (New York) and Saint Mary (San Francisco). In 2005 he became a National Festival Conductor for the American Federation of Pueri Cantores. His organ music has recently been featured on American Public Media’s Pipedreams.

He has composed numerous hours of liturgical, choral and instrumental music, ranging from Psalm settings and motets for Mass to large-scale works with choir and orchestra. His music has been recorded and released by the Cathedral Choirs in Charleston on two CDs, Oratio and Mary At The Cross. These CDs can be ordered on this site. He has also recorded a CD of jazz piano music, Semblance and a CD of his own organ compositions, Distance. A second organ CD is forthcoming.

Larry Long

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