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

Vladimir Kulenović

Following the completion of his post-graduate conducting studies at the Juilliard School, Vladimir Kulenovic was named Associate Conductor of Utah Symphony | Utah Opera in the U.S., Principal Conductor of the Kyoto International Music Festival in Japan and Resident Conductor of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra in Serbia. His recent guest conducting engagements included collaborations with renowned orchestras in the US, Europe in Asia, as well as illustrious soloists including Leon Fleisher, Mischa Maisky, Akiko Suwanai, Joseph Silverstein and Augustin Hadelich, to name but a few.

This season in Europe, Kulenovic leads Leipzig Symphony, Belgrade Philharmonic, Slovenian Philharmonic, Zagreb Philharmonic and Macedonian Philharmonic. Following his debut in Asia at the Kyoto Music Festival, he led two critically acclaimed performances with Evergreen Symphony at the National Concert Hall in Taipei, and will return there in 2013/14. In the U.S., Kulenovic will conduct the final concert of the 2012/13 Utah Symphony subscription season in Abravanel Hall, make his debut with the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra in Michigan, and conduct the Jacksonville Symphony as one of 6 top emerging conductors chosen by the League of American Orchestras for the biannual Bruno Walter National Conducting Preview.

Recent engagements include performances with the Beethoven-Orchester Bonn at Beethovenhalle, Leipzig Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Belgrade and Slovenian Philharmonic, Juilliard Orchestra at Lincoln Center, Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss am Rhein, Verbier, Aspen, Salzburg Mozarteum and Cabrillo festival orchestras, and benefit a performance of Mozart’s Requiem with members of New York Choral Society and Juilliard Orchestra, which raised significant funds for Japan’s Disaster Relief Fund.

An alumnus of the Juilliard School, Kulenovic was awarded the Charles Schiff Conducting Prize for Excellence upon the completion of his post-graduate studies with James DePreist and Alan Gilbert. In addition to his formal studies, he continuously worked with Kurt Masur since 2008 in New York, Bonn, Leipzig and Verbier. As the Conducting Fellow at the Verbier Festival, Kulenovic conducted the Festival Orchestra in two internationally televised performances on Medici TV and was subsequently invited to serve as the conducting assistant to Kurt Masur at the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. In addition, Kulenovic also had the honor to prepare the orchestra at the Dubrovnik Festival for Zubin Mehta.

Recipient of the Sir Georg Solti Career Assistance Award, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Scholarship, and Bruno Walter Memorial Scholarship, Kulenovic was the cover conductor of the Baltimore Symphony and Baltimore Opera and graduated from the Peabody Institute under the tutelage of Gustav Meier. He also served as a conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, Salzburg Mozarteum and Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music.

Mr. Kulenovic was awarded the prestigious Alfred B. Whitney Prize for the Highest Scholastic Achievement at the Boston Conservatory, where he graduated summa cum laude as Valedictorian, earning degrees in Conducting and Piano Performance. As a pianist, Mr. Kulenovic won the 2nd Prize at the Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Paris.

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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