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

Larry Vuckovich

Larry Vuckovich was born in Kotor, Montenegro (Former Yugoslavia). He came to San Francisco in 1951 and was immediately exposed to a flourishing jazz scene. After receiving a classical training he became a frequent guest at music clubs like the Blackhawk where he met Vince Guaraldi. Mr. Vuckovich studied jazz piano as Guaraldi's only piano student. At the same time he enrolled in music studies at San Francisco State University, where John Handy was a major influence on the school's jazz program.

Mr. Vuckovich began his professional career in 1959 with tenor saxophonist Brew Moore, accompanying singers David Allyn and Irene Kral. Larry also performed with such instrumentalists like Handy and Monk Montgomery. During the mid sixties, he began a long-term collaboration with a vocalist and lyricist Jon Hendricks, and appeared at major festivals and clubs worldwide, including famous musical stage production Evolution of the Blues.

In the 70s Mr. Vuckovich was most active in Europe. There, he toured with Dexter Gordon and Philly Joe Jones and other famous musicians. Upon his return to San Francisco he became the house pianist at the well-known Keystone Korner until its closing in 1983. In the 1980s Vuckovich lived and performed in New York. There, he appeared at major jazz clubs, including Village Vanguard, Blue Note, Bradley's, Zinno's, and others. During this period of his career he received top reviews from the New York Times, the Village Voice and The New Yorker. The New York Times saw Larry as a truly unique musician who “brings with him an outlook and a collection of influences that set him apart from most pianists who are heard regularly in New York.”

Mr. Vuckovich now lives in Northern California, supported by his family of musicians. He often performs all over the San Francisco Bay Area and was named a “Jazz Ambassador of Good Will” for the newly renovated Lincoln Center premier performing arts center in July of 2008. In 2006 there was a Larry Vuckovich Day in San Francisco on December 8.

More information about Mr. Vuckovich, his remarkable new production and distinguished career is available at: http://larryvuckovich.com/


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People Directory

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