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

Djordje Nesic

Djordje Stevan Nesic’s pianism has been described as ‘artful‘, ‘assertive‘, ‘sensitive‘ and ‘quietly virtuosic‘, and his career has been highlighted by recital, concerto, chamber, and collaborative performances. During the current season, Mr. Nesic performed live on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor, recorded seven newly commissioned American art songs for the Opera America Songbook project, performed in both concert and recital at Greenwich Music Festival’s All Things Stravinsky season; Carnegie Hall in New York City, the Ohana Arts Festival in Honolulu, Cincinnati’s Taft Museum and the Underground Railroad Museum Freedom Center, as well as at the University of Wisconsin and the Next Act Theater in Milwaukee. He was also featured in the PBS broadcast of “This Little Light of Mine” with soprano Adrienne Danrich, which was awarded a midwest Emmy Award in 2011. Among the pianist’s recent Manhattan performances are those at Lincoln Center in its “Meet the Artist” series; Carnegie’s Weill and Zankel halls; the United Nations General Assembly Hall; the River to River Festival; Tribeca’s Ico Gallery; the Trinity Church Wall Street.

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The 2010-2011 season included appearances at University of Richmond; the Mann Performing Arts Center in Philadelphia; the Ravinia Festival’s Rising Star series; and the “Sing for Hope Gala” presented at Lincoln Center. He returned to the Greenwich Music Festival to prepare and perform the critically acclaimed production of Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine.

In his capacity as an accomplished vocal coach, Djordje Nesic spent the summer of 2012 preparing Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale at the Greenwich Music Festival, and Janacek’s Jenufa at the Bohemian National Hall in New York City. During Greenwich Music Festival’s 2009-2010 season, Mr. Nesic served as vocal coach and performed as pianist for Viktor Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis. A film of the production premiered at the 2010 Westchester Jewish Film Festival. That same season, he prepared and performed the operas Dinner and Delusion by Michael Sahl and Nancy Manocherian and Clarence and Anita by Benjamin Yarmolinsky at the Cell Theater in New York in collaboration with the Center for Contemporary Opera. He spent summers of 2003-2007 at Glimmerglass Opera, 2000-2002 at the Aspen Opera Theater Center, and 1998-1999 at the Tanglewood Festival.

Earlier, Mr. Nesic appeared with soprano Hanan Alattar at Carnegie Hall in a recital sponsored by the Marilyn Horne Foundation, and performed with soprano Monica Yunus at an honorary event for her father Professor Mohammad Yunus—winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. The pianist’s schedule included participation as a panelist for Opera America’s “Who’s in Charge of Rehearsal?”, and a Professional Workshop at Carnegie Hall with bass-baritone Daniel Gross, under the leadership of the famed German singer Thomas Quasthoff.

Mr. Nesic coached Audra McDonald in preparation for her Houston Grand Opera debut in Michael John La Chiusa’s Send (Who are You? I Love You) and Poulenc’s The Human Voice.

A Slavic-diction specialist, Djordje Nesic is in high demand as an opera coach, as well as a vocal-recital collaborator. Professional affiliations include those with The Juilliard School, the University of Texas at San Antonio, The University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, the Ash Lawn (Charlottesville, Va.) Opera Festival, and California State University, Long Beach. With the Glimmerglass Opera—both in New York City and in the Cooperstown area—Mr. Nesic has been featured in productions sponsored and organized by the company. Under the auspices of Glimmerglass, he has performed as a pianist and served as a panelist in live radio broadcasts from the state of New York’s NPR affiliates WAMC (Albany) and WXIX (Rochester). Television appearances have included live broadcasts from both the “World Food Prize” ceremony and the city of New York for Japan’s FUJI station.

A favorite of festival audiences, Mr. Nesic has performed at the Tanglewood, Cleveland Art Song, Lake Luzerne (NY) Chamber, and Aspen Music Festivals. The list of conductors with whom he has worked features Julius Rudel, James Conlon, Stewart Robertson, David Angus, Reinhardt DeLeeuw, Gerald Steichen, and Robert Spano.

Djordje Stevan Nesic, a roster member of the Swiss Global Artistic Foundation, currently lives in New York City where he holds the position of artist-in-residence at the Broadway Presbyterian Church.

From 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