The Latest Cathedral News
Volunteer with the St. James Sunday School
August 13, 2025
Each Sunday during the school year following the 9 a.m. service St. James offers classes in Christian formation and education for all ages 0 through 17. We are grateful for a team of dedicated Sunday School teachers and youth leaders and we invite you to consider helping with these ministries as well. Opportunities range from being a door monitor welcoming children to their classrooms and being an additional adult in the room to helping with crafts, games, other activities to actually teaching lessons. If you are interested in helping in whatever capacity, we can find a way for you to help.
Interested? Reach out to Jacob Perkins, Intern for Administration, to let him know and get you connected and set up with the training you'll need to get started.
School Supplies for St. Martin's
August 13, 2025
Our partner parish St. Martin's is once again providing backpacks filled with school supplies to their neighborhood elementary school. This year backpacks will go to children entering kindergarten and 1st grade. Because school begins August 18, the most helpful donations are funds given directly to St. Martin’s by Sunday, August 17, earmarked for the effort.
Please
- Go to St. Martin's website
- Pick one of the donation methods (PayPal or tithe.ly)
- Choose "special offering" and write "school supplies" in the memo line.
St. Martin’s coordinator Laura Kliewer says, “We so appreciate St. James' partnership with us, especially over the last few years, and look forward to seeing and being with you all again soon!!”
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.
