Dr. Karen Eshelman is the director of music at St. James. Her main duties include conducting the St. James parish choir, planning the music for the liturgies at St. James, and playing the church’s tracker pipe organ, built by Halbert Gober in 2007. To support her work in the church, Karen has attended classes in vocal production through the McCloskey Institute of Voice and has completed Education for Ministry, a four-year course of theological studies for laypersons in the Church. Prior to coming to St. James she served as organist/choirmaster at churches in Rochester, NY; Minneapolis, MN; and Tryon, NC. In addition to her work as a professional church musician, Karen was an instructor of music at Furman University from 2004-2023, where she taught classes in music theory, music appreciation, organ, and harpsichord. Prior to teaching at Furman, she spent seventeen years as the instructor of organ and music theory at Presbyterian College (S.C.).

Karen Eshelman earned her masters and doctoral degrees in organ at the Eastman School of Music, as a member of the class of master teacher Russell Saunders. At Eastman she was awarded the Performer’s Certificate for a series of outstanding recitals. Karen’s earliest organ studies were with John Strege at Trinity Episcopal Church (now Cathedral) in Portland, Oregon, as part of her undergraduate music degree at Portland State University. At Portland State, Karen completed the requirements for the organ major and also continued as a piano major, studying with the award-winning Czech-American composer Tomas Svoboda. During this time she also served as an assistant organist/choirmaster intern at Trinity.