The Latest Cathedral News Author: Beau Surratt
World Labyrinth Day May 3
May 01, 2025
World Labyrinth Day
Saturday, May 3 at 1 p.m.
Spend some time in quiet reflection walking the labyrinth next to the plaza, and join others around the world engaging in this spiritual practice on World Labyrinth Day.
The labyrinth is an ancient spiritual tool in the form of a prayer walk – a walk of quiet meditation. Its path leads from the outside of the labyrinth and weaves its way into the center. Unlike a maze, the labyrinth has no trick turns or dead ends. When walking it, there is no need to guess which way to turn. A labyrinth has one entrance, one path to follow, and one way to the center and back to the entrance.
If you’d like to help welcome visitors to our labyrinth and to St. James, please connect with Mike Hess or Laura Jenkins.
Axiom Brass Easter Weekend 2025
April 16, 2025
St. James Cathedral is delighted to welcome Axiom Brass back for Easter at the Cathedral. Described as “exceptional ambassadors for classical music” and “innovative programmers”, Chicago-based Axiom Brass designs concert experiences for audiences that stretch the imagination and expand sensibilities. Their concert programs regularly pair original works by composers such as Augusta Read Thomas, George Walker, and Joan Tower with early musical translations by Barbara Strozzi, Claudia Francesca Rusca, Leonora Duarte, and rousing tangos by Astor Piazzolla. As strong advocates for the creation and performance of “living music”, the ensemble actively engages with their audiences to showcase the importance of performing the music of living composers. Axiom has presented concerts all over the world, including the Merkin Concert Hall in New York City, Gallo Center for the Arts in California, Shenzhen Concert Hall in China, and Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis in Portugal.
In 2021, to celebrate the 100th birthday of Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla, Axiom Brass recorded an entire album showcasing his music entitled Astor, becoming the first brass quintet to record an entire album of Piazzolla’s works.
In 2016, the Chicago-based ensemble commissioned ten new works to celebrate their 10th anniversary, including compositions by Augusta Read Thomas, Liduino Pitombeira, David Faleris, Matt Ulery, and Ben Hjertmann. These compositions can be heard on their album, First Impressions.
The only brass ensemble to ever win the Fischoff Educator Award, Axiom creates custom- tailored workshops and residency activities for presenters and their communities. The group’s commitment to education and their interactive teaching style has led to residencies at the Grand Tetons Music Festival and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, as well as being featured as ensemble-in-residence for the National Brass Symposium.
Axiom Brass performs exclusively on Bach Trumpets and Trombones, Conn French Horns and Flugelhorns. and Mutec Mutes.
Dr. Caroline Robinson, Guest Organist for Easter Weekend 2025
April 16, 2025
St. James Cathedral is excited to welcome Dr. Caroline Robinson as our guest organist for Easter weekend this year. Dr. Robison is an organist, pedagogue, church musician, and music collaborator who has been featured in performance across the United States. Robinson joined the Department of Organ at the University of Michigan as an assistant professor in the fall of 2024.
In addition to her numerous US performances, Robinson has performed internationally in England, Denmark, France, Germany, and China. Her playing has been broadcast multiple times on American Public Media’s Pipedreams, Pipedreams LIVE!, and Philadelphia-based public radio station WRTI’s Wanamaker Organ Hour. She has been a featured performer at conventions of the Organ Historical Society, the East Texas Pipe Organ Festival, the Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative (EROI), and the American Guild of Organists (AGO). She performed on the closing concert at the 2022 National AGO Convention in Seattle, collaborating with Seattle Pro Musica on choral and organ works including James MacMillan’s Cantos Sagrados. Her 2024-25 performances will take her to the Gulangyu Organ Museum in Gulangyu, China; the West Point Cadet Chapel; the Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, OR; and St. Paul’s Cathedral, Pittsburgh. She will give masterclasses in Haddonfield, NJ and Seattle, WA.
Robinson is a laureate of the National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance (NYACOP), held as part of the 2018 AGO convention in Kansas City. She holds first prize from the 11th annual Albert Schweitzer Organ Festival in 2008 and from the 10th annual West Chester University Organ Competition in 2010. She was a semifinalist in the 2014 Dublin International Organ Competition. In 2016, she was chosen as one of The Diapason’s “20 Under 30” promising young organists in the United States.
Previously, Robinson held the post of organist and associate choirmaster at the Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta. She is an active continuo player with early music ensembles, having performed at the Rochester Early Music Festival, San Francisco’s American Bach Soloists Academy, and most recently with the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra. She is represented as a solo recitalist in North America by Karen McFarlane Artists, Inc.
Robinson completed her undergraduate work at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Alan Morrison. Aided by a grant from the J. William Fulbright fellowship fund, she studied at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Toulouse with Michel Bouvard and Jan Willem Jansen (organ) and Yasuko Bouvard (harpsichord). Robinson holds the doctor of musical arts and the master of music in organ performance and literature degrees from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with David Higgs. Robinson also received the performer’s certificate and the advanced teaching certificate in theory pedagogy from Eastman.
