Welcome to St. John's!

This Fall St. John's welcomes three new faces to it's Sunday morning lineup:

Our new interim organist/choirmaster Daniel Beckwith and seminarians Sarah Fisher and Evette Austin.

Here's a brief background on them and don't forget to introduce yourself on Sunday morning!.

Daniel Beckwith
Organist Daniel Beckwith received his BM in Organ Performance and MM in Church Music and Choral Conducting from Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey. He has served as Associate Musician at The Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, St. Bartholomew's Church and The Cathedral of St. John the Divine. As an opera conductor, Mr. Beckwith also maintains an international career, having performed with the leading opera houses including New York's Metropolitan Opera and City Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Seattle Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Canadian Opera, Vancouver Opera, Australian Opera, Le Grand Theatre du Geneve, the U.K.'s Glyndebourne Festival and Opera North. He has also served as Associate Choral Conductor for the New York Choral Artists – the professional chorus of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Sarah Fisher
Sarah is currently attending General Theological Seminary. She will be with St. John's ten hours each week learning about the different areas of ministry that make a church run. Here's a little about Sarah in her own words:

"I'm from the South: Athens, Georgia to be exact. I say ‘y'all' a lot. All of my family (mom, dad, step-dad, grandma, uncle, aunt and cousins) are in Athens. Although I now consider New York home, Georgia's still on my driver's license and Delta takes me there with some frequency. I've been in New York for a year and have two years left at General.

I'm a cradle Episcopalian and most of my worship experience, prior to moving to New York last year, was at my home parish, Emmanuel. My work experience includes some time there as Director of Christian Education and Youth Ministry coordinator. I also served as Chaplain at the Episcopal Center at the University of Georgia. My non-church related work has included casework for Child Protective Services as well as a small business that I started as a massage therapist.

I have two cats, Lucy and Sojo (short for Sojourner, which she is). Just to make life a little more complicated and a lot more fun, I hope to add a Lab or a Golden Retriever to that menagerie before my days in New York are over. I'm learning to cook and loveeasy, yummy recipes. I play the guitar well enough to get by, but I'm no rock-star. When I was in high school my dream was to sing in musicals on Broadway. Now my dream is to see musicals on Broadway (and sing along to the soundtracks). I have an embarrassingly great love for all things Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

New York and my first year of seminary have been great. I'm eager to start in on the second year, looking especially forward to my time with all of you."

Evette Austin

I am a fifty-year-old seminarian from the Diocese of Connecticut studying for the priesthood at the General Theological Seminary. My home parish is St. Andrew’s in Stamford, Connecticut. I was born and raised on a beautiful Island in the Caribbean called Barbados. I am the first of eight children, six girls and two boys. My mother Thelma Wiltshire lives in Barbados. My father, Jeffrey, died of cancer when most of my siblings were still very young. After my father’s death my mother and I raised our family. From childhood, I grew up in a loving, kind, orderly and spiritual home environment.

My parents, grandmother and schoolteachers practiced and preached their Christianity. Prayer, Bible reading, Sunday school, morning, lunch and evening prayers, church services and youth group activities became a central part of my formation. Although our family church and faith were founded on the Anglican tradition there was no exclusive way of worship. My grandmother exposed us to several types of worship. She felt this would help us to understand and respect the many ways in which we can worship God.

In my teenage years I became a Sunday school teacher and later assumed responsibility for the youth group, church choirs, Bible school events and Christmas Pageants. Education wise I successfully completed my G.C.E. (General Certificate of Education, through England) and commenced my training at Erdiston Teachers Training College and the University of the West Indies.

After teaching for twelve years I immigrated to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and lived with my uncle and his family for three years. In 1981, I married Clarence Austin an American of Barbadian parentage and settled in Stamford Connecticut. I attended Merrill’s Business School and then Sacred Heart University. I graduated from Sacred Heart with a B.S. in Computer Science.

I continued my career in education as a Computer Systems Software Instructor and Developer. I attended St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church where I became a Lay Eucharistic Minister, Minister of Communion, Lay Reader, lector, acolyte, treasurer for seven years, Altar Guild member and youth group leader. I have served on the executive board and vestry and have conducted fundraising activities, acted as facilitator for stewardship campaigns, worked with the organist to re-establish the junior choir, and was a member of the senior choir. I brought Holy Communion to the sick and ministered to the suffering and the dying in our parish. In 1996, I became aware of a calling to the priesthood. This call eventually led me to become an aspirant and postulant for the ordained ministry.