A great man is one who collects knowledge the way a bee collects honey and uses it to help people overcome the difficulties they endure - hunger, ignorance and disease!
- Nikola Tesla

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
- Franklin Roosevelt

While their territory has been devastated and their homes despoiled, the spirit of the Serbian people has not been broken.
- Woodrow Wilson

Aleksandra Denda

Aleksandra Denda is an internationally recognized, New York-based music artist.

Over the span of years, she’s been performing and recording throughout USA, Europe, Asia and South America, as a leader and as featured artist in the wide array of musical genres, spanning from Soul to World Music, Brazilian, R&B, and Jazz.

Some of these projects include performances with American Idol's Michael Lynche (aka Big Mike) as his background vocalist, recording with the flamenco star Jose Merce on the Latin Grammy nominated album Mi Unica Llave, and co-founding ROSA the international traditional Serbian all-female a cappella group endorsed by NY Folklore Society.

She also had the pleasure of working with world acclaimed musicians-Patrice Rushen, Bilal, Javier Limon, Marko Djordjevic & SVETI, Women of the World, Joey Blake, Christiane Karam and Albino Mbie.
​Aleksandra spent a Summer in India in 2015, teaching as Artist in Residence at New Delhi's Global Music Institute, as well as performing with some of India's finest fusion musicians with project PATHWAYS that she formed with pianist Aman Mahajan.

Swimming in many sonic oceans led to the makings of her debut EP DREAMER, a genre-bending, soulful collection of her original music, released in March 2016.

In 2016 Aleksandra and her group were a part of Global celebration of International Jazz Day at Dupont Circle, in Washington DC, sharing the stage with jazz luminaries Dee Dee Bridgewater and Herbie Hancock. The same year, she performed at another IDJ event at UN headquarters in New York, alongside Brazilian guitarist Sergio Pereira.

She is a Director of the First International Contemporary Music Competition for Young Musicians in the Balkans - The Best Musical Mind, organized by Multikultivator cultural service and supported by Berklee College of Music and Souza Lima Conservatory.

In 2017 she joined a new international project - Jan Kus and The SlavoRican Assembly, an eclectic group that combines musical traditions from the Balkans and Slavic folk songs with the musical traditions of the Caribbean, synthesizing them seamlessly in a never-before-heard, attractive, heartfelt and powerful rhythmical mix!

Source: Official Web-Site


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Marko V. Jaric

Marko V. Jaric was born on March 17, 1952 in Belgrade. He completed his elementary school education in Belgrade and attended the Air Force Military High School in Mostar where he graduated in 1970 as the best student of his class. Subsequently he enrolled at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics where he received a degree in physics in 1974, graduating as the best student of his generation. He received his Ph.D. in 1978 at the City University of New York with professor Joseph Birman, one of the most prominent physicists in solid-state physics, as his thesis advisor.

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Sailors of the Sky

A conversation with Fr. Stamatis Skliris and Fr. Marko Rupnik on contemporary Christian art

In these timely conversations led by Fr. Radovan Bigovic, many issues are introduced that enable the contemporary reader to deepen and expand his or her understanding of the role of art in the life of the Church. Here we find answers to questions on the crisis of contemporary ecclesiastical art in West and East; the impact of Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism and Abstract painting on contemporary ecclesiastical painting; and a consideration of the main distrinction between iconography and secular painting. The dialogue, while resolving some doubts about the difference between iconography, religious painting, and painting in general, reconciles the requirement to obey inconographic canons with the freedom essential to artistic creativity, demonstrating that obedience to the canons is not a threat to the vitatlity of iconography. Both artists illumine the role of prayer and ascetisicm in the art of iconography. They also mention curcial differences between iconography in the Orthodox Church and in Roman Catholicism. How important thse distinctions are when exploring the relationship between contemporary theology and art! In a time when postmodern "metaphysics' revitalizes every concept, these masters still believe that, to some extent, Post-Modernism adds to the revitatiztion of Christian art, stimulating questions about "artistic inspiration" and the essential asethetic categories of Christian painting. Their exceptionally wide, yet nonetheless deep, expertise assists their not-so-everday connections between theology, ar, and modern issues concerning society: "society" taken in its broader meaning as "civilization." Finally, the entire artistic project of Stamatis and Rupnik has important ecumenical implications that aswer a genuine longing for unity in the Christian word.

The text of this 94-page soft-bound book has been translated from the Serbian by Ivana Jakovljevic, Fr. Gregory Edwards, and Andrijana Krstic. Published by Sebastian Press, Western American Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Contemporary Christian Thought Series, number 7, First Edition, ISBN: 978-0-9719505-8-0