Fine Arts Staff Biographies

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Jane Burke
Minister of Fine Arts

Jane comes to us with a proven track record in choral conducting and pastoral skills. Most recently, Jane was the Minister of Fine Arts at Chamblee First United Methodist Church where she served 1996 - 2006. She has also served as the Director of the Festival Singers of Atlanta since 1997, conducting them in concert here at Saint Mark and Spivey Hall and for the last 6 years at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. Jane has a Masters of Sacred Music in Choral Conducting from Emory University and was an Instructor of Music Theory at Emory University for four years. She has completed work towards a Master of Arts in Theater and holds a Bachelor of Arts in General Speech and Theater from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. She has directed a number of plays and musicals and is a member of the Actor’s Equity Association. Jane also has deep roots in the Saint Mark community. She was a staff singer and section leader of the Saint Mark Chancel Choir for seven years until 1994, Assistant choir director 1994 – 1995, Interim choir director 1995 – 1996, and she has worked with the Saint Mark Breakfast Club for many years.

Jane has directed the music for such varied productions as You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, The Fantastiks, and Three Penny Opera. Stage direction credits include Cinderella, The Music Man, Camelot, Bye Bye Birdie, and Once Upon a Mattress. As an actress, she has appeared rn over forty plays. Favorite roles include Bloody Mary in South Pacific and the Grand Duchess Olga Katrina in You Can't Take It With You (both here at Saint Mark) and the Mother Abbess in Sound of Music, Little Buttercup in H.M.S. Pinafore, Katisha in The Mikado, Big Mama in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and the title role in Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You. In ensemble with pianist arranger/vocalist Amy Holloway and tenor Larry Manning, she appears often around Atlanta and beyond in original cabaret shows featuring the American Songbook.

We are blessed and excited that Jane has become an important part of our community of faith.

John Richardson
Associate Director of Fine Arts & Organist

Since winning Second Prize in 1996 and First Prize in 1997 in the Atlanta Chapter of the American Guild of Organists Scholarship Competition, John Richardson has earned national recognition for his mature artistry as an organist and church musician. He made his concert debut at the world renowned concert organ in Spivey Hall, Clayton College and State University in Morrow, Georgia. There he had the privilege of studying under Virgil Fox’s chosen student, Richard Morris.

John is an active promoter of the instrument and is a repeat guest performer in the Spivey Hall Children’s Program Series and the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church Children’s Programs where he introduced newcomers of all ages to the pipe organ.

In 1999 he was invited to join the faculty of the Pipe Organ Encounter (POE) of the Atlanta chapter of the American Guild of Organists for young organ students. He is a featured recording artist for a demonstration CD of Parkey Organs Inc. where he had the opportunity to assist in building, installing and tuning many organs.
 
John is a recent graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where he studied with John Weaver and was an assistant to Peter Conte, Wanamaker Grand Court Organist, Philadelphia, the world’s largest operational organ, consisting of over 28,000 pipes!
 
John began playing the piano at the early age of three. He was the organist at his father’s church at age 8 and formally studied organ at the age of sixteen under the instruction of Marie Johnson in his hometown of Lakeland, Florida. He has assisted and directed church music programs and concertized in numerous cities across the US. A talented improviser, instructor, conductor, counter-tenor and piano/organ tuner, he delights in performing varied programs of musical rarities.

John came to us in April 2007 from First Baptist Church in Philadelphia.