The Latest Cathedral News
Welcome Nico Tjoelker, Assistant Director of Music
August 05, 2025
We welcome new Assistant Director of Music Nico Tjoelker to the St. James staff. Nico will assist Canon Director of Music Stephen Buzard in running the Cathedral’s multifaceted, intergenerational music program. Nico is a candidate for the Doctor of Musical Arts in organ at the University of Notre Dame, studying with Professor Kola Owolabi. He currently serves as Director of Music at Grace United Methodist Church in South Bend, Indiana.
Previously, he earned a Master of Music in organ from Yale University (2023), studying with Professors Martin Jean, Carole Terry, and James O’Donnell. At Yale, he was Director of Music at Berkeley Divinity School and served as Organ Scholar at Trinity Episcopal Church on the Green, where he assisted Walden Moore in directing the adult and children’s choirs.
Before Yale, Nico lived in Australia, completing a Bachelor of Music in organ at Sydney Conservatorium of Music (2020) under Professor Philip Swanton, graduating with First Class Honors. His thesis examined early 20th-century paper roll recordings of organ music. He was Organ Scholar at St. Mark’s Anglican Church (2020–2021) and St. Stephen’s Uniting Church (2017–2021).
An active international performer, Nico studied at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg (Germany) in 2018–2019 and attended the Haarlem International Organ Festival (Netherlands) in 2018 and 2022. In 2024, he was one of six organists worldwide selected for the Festival’s Excellence Class, where he performed in a showcase recital. He was also among five selected participants in the Lucerne Organ Masterclass (Switzerland, 2018).
Additional performances include the Australia and New Zealand College of Organists Academy recital (Napier, 2018), a tour of European historical organs (2017), and the Cambridge Organ Scholar Experience (2016). He was guest organist for the New South Wales Youth Orchestra’s inaugural concert (2015) and won first prize in the Sydney Organ Competition – Intermediate Section (2013), and first prize in the Sydney Organ Competition – Open Section (2016).
Nico and his wife, Alice, a PhD student in liturgical studies at Notre Dame, have recently relocated to Chicago from South Bend, IN.
Choir Camp 2025 Underway
August 04, 2025
Each August, the choristers spend a week in residence at the DeKoven Center in Racine, Wisconsin rehearsing, engaging in activities, serving the local community, and forming friendships. This week lays the foundation for the year to come, not only musically, but more importantly by building the chorister community. This community is at the heart of what makes this program so successful and so impactful to the lives of these children.
Choir Camp 2025 is off to a wonderful start - the choristers have spent time rehearsing, singing Evensong, making crafts, enjoying outdoor time, doing music theory work, and even going to the bowling alley and arcade.
Thank you to our chorister parents and families, and all who support The Choir School at St. James Cathedral with your prayers, presence, and financial offerings.
Book Talk August 3 at 3 p.m. "A Queer Lectionary"
July 16, 2025
The St. James LGBTQ+ Affinity Group will host Peter P. C. Carlson, Ph. D, Editor and Principal Author of A Queer Lectionary: (Im)Proper Readings from the Margins Year A on Sunday, August 3 at 3 p.m. in the Cathedral. This event is free and open to the public.
From an interdenominational group of preachers and scholars, a queer commentary to address recent concerns around LGBTQ+ rights.
This preaching resource features commentaries on every Sunday and feast day reading in the Revised Common Lectionary from an interdenominational group of scholars and homileticians. Offering queer interpretations of biblical texts, the series will appeal to scholars of queer theology and will support preachers in crafting sermons that convey a message of liberation, rather than one that reinforces the power structures of the world.
A Queer Lectionary features commentators from a variety of liturgical traditions, including clergy and scholars from the Episcopal Church, United Church of Christ, African Methodist Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Metropolitan Community Churches, and beyond. Written to enable preachers to engage with every assigned text, each volume features sermons that respond to every lesson in each lectionary entry.
Peter Carlson is a scholar of religious history and gender. Their work has focused on constructions of masculinity and femininity in the late medieval and early modern periods, as well as theologies of sexuality and gender construction across religious traditions. A graduate of Claremont Graduate School and Wheaton College, Carlson was a fellow at Lincoln College Oxford. They are currently associate professor of religion at California Lutheran University, where they regularly teach courses in gender and queer theology and direct the gender and women’s studies minor. A committed Episcopalian, Carlson has presented to religious groups on the history of the Christian church, the pursuit and quality of sacred space, medieval history, and the history of gender and marriage. They also preach regularly. Carlson lives in Thousand Oaks, California.