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

Sava Vemić

Sava Vemić (born 1987), bass, comes from Belgrade, Serbia. He is a member of The Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program in the season 2014/2015.

He studied singing in the Music School Mokranjac with prof. Tanja Obrenović and later at the Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade with prof. Nikola Mijailović. In Mozart’s Magic flute he made his debut as Sarastro at the opera stage of Madlenianum Opera & Theatre in Belgrade. He received scholarships from the International Vocal Arts Institute (IVAI) in 2013 when he sang Bartolo in an IVAI production of Le nozze di Figaro and in July 2014 when he sang Osmin in their production of Die Entführung aus dem Serial in Tel Aviv, Israel. In June 2014 he made his Carnegie Hall debut as Sir Walter Raleigh in Donizetti’s opera Roberto Devereux with The Opera Orchestra of New York led by Mo. Queler. In 2012 he performed at the Esterhazy festival in Haydnsaal, Austria.

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During his education he was awarded with several prizes: 1st Prize Award at the Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition, New York, 2014; Danica Mastilović’s Award for the best student of solo-singing department at the University of Arts in Belgrade, 2014; Publikumspreis der Stadt Beeskow in the frame of the international Opera Course Oper Oder-Spree, Germany, 2011; 1st Prize at the sixth Solo Singers Competition Lazar Jovanović, Serbia, 2008.

Beside music he holds a Master degree in Pharmacy from the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Belgrade.


SA

 

People Directory

Tom Jurich

By Sandi Radoja

[This article originally appeared in the American Srbobran, April 5, 2017]

LOUISVILLE, KY – On an unseasonably hot February day, Tom Jurich welcomed us to his third floor office on the campus of the University of Louisville. We were 2-1/2 hours early, but his door swung open wide despite our inability to jump time zones correctly.

Born and raised in Southern California, Tom Jurich of SNF Lodge #95-Lovcen-Los Angeles, was apologetic for the heat as if it was his fault. “We don’t turn the air conditioning on this early,” he said, an explanation we already heard from his receptionist who called her desktop fan her “new BFF.” We were immediately at ease, and the friendliness of the entire office far outweighed the heat.

It was Mercia Martich of Northridge, California, who sent us in the direction of the Tom Jurich story initially. She said he was a SNF member and someone to hoot about, adding, “He is not only successful, but a fine gentleman and a family man, too.”

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Publishing

The Hagia Sophia

The Mystical Light of the Great Church and its Architectural Dress

by Charalambos P. Stathakis

Dear reader, as you run like the rest of us along the dizzy main road, stop, stay aside for a while. Let the others be dizzy, and take the secret underground trail, which will lead you through the dewdrops of the leaves, the crystal smile of the sun, the city’s underground galler- ies, your knowledge, and your feelings, to the doorstep of the Hagia Sophia. Because all dew- drops, all sunrays, and all beauty lead there. That is what you will be told by my friend, the author, whom I am fond of and whom I send you to, Charalambos Stathakis: the doctor, the warm and humane researcher, the scientist devoted to his work and his patients, who has given a series of scientific papers, who, nevertheless, retains a nest of beauty untouched in his heart, which makes him outstanding—even though he is not a specialist in architecture, nor a historian, nor a theologian, nor a Byzantinist—it makes him stand out in all these together and in entirety.

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