2024
Songs of Faith, Love and Delight!
In a normal year, we would focus on all the good things we've done this year - in particular, bringing the music of five contemporary Slavic women composers (See Bios below) to the Bay Area for the first time. And maybe how through our music, Slavyanka has helped keep alive, people to people connections, even when our governments, our politics and policies have threatened to overshadow them.
But this year, there are just two important messages we want to share with you. As we write to you in the middle of our post-election season - with all the uneasiness we feel about the world today and all the overload of its pressing and distressing problems - we are reminded of a favorite quote by Stella Adler, the great acting coach:
At times like these, when our minds and hearts can feel overwhelmed by the press of circumstances, more than ever we need the timeless presence of art and music - to remind us of the deep things that matter, to call us back to our own deep center, and to rediscover the beauty and the faith that make life worth living.
That's the heart of why we continue to sing.
On behalf of our chorus singers, friends and donors, with deep gratitude,
Composers
Irina Denisova
A prominent choral conductor and composer in Belarus, now a nun at the St. Elizabeth Monastery in Minsk - Nun Juliania (Denisova). When asked about how music is born, nun Juliania answers quite simply. She taught children for 30 years, explained to them what a melody consists of, how to break it down into components and put it back together, “just like a construction kit”. But only when talent is applied music becomes an expression of something “transcendent, unearthly” and communicates unity, so that every listener thinks this particular composition is about him. Simply creating a melody is easy for nun Juliania due to her higher musical education and a wealth of experience. She doesn’t even consider such unfinished compositions worth attention. Only the ones constantly recurring, the ones which she loves dearly deserve to be embodied in a fully-finished structure of a chant.
Dragana Velickovic
A composer known for her contributions to religious music, has left an indelible mark through her work on Troparion. In the realm of Byzantine music and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, a troparion is a short hymn, often organized into stanzas. Its earliest function was as a refrain during the recitation of biblical odes and psalms.
Iryna Aleksiychuk
Composer, pianist and organist, associate professor of composition at the National Academy of Music of Ukraine, Laureate of international competitions and National Creative Awards, Honored Art Worker of Ukraine, member of the National Union of Composers of Ukraine.
Dobrinka Tabakova
A composer of ‘exciting, deeply moving’ music (Washington Times), with ‘glowing tonal harmonies and grand, sweeping gestures [which] convey a huge emotional depth’ (The Strad).
She has been commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society, BBC Radio 3 and the European Broadcasting Union. Her debut profile album String Paths, on ECM Records, was nominated for a Grammy in 2014. In 2017 she was appointed composer-in-residence with the BBC Concert Orchestra. An album of her orchestral works, recorded by the Halle Orchestra is released in October 2023.
Ljubica Marić (Љубица Марић)
18 March 1909 – 17 September 2003)
A composer from Yugoslavia. She was a pupil of Josip Štolcer-Slavenski. She was known for being inspired by Byzantine Orthodox church music. She was professor at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade and a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Ljubica Marić is considered to be the most original Serbian composer of the twentieth century and musically the most influential one.