The Synodal School of Liturgical Music was founded in 1992 to train choir conductors, singers, and church readers in the liturgical music tradition of the Russian Orthodox Church, focusing primarily on the parishes of the Russian diaspora. The school offers courses in music theory, sight-singing, Church Slavonic, church music history, liturgics, liturgical performance practice, voice, and choral methods. It is based at the Holy Dormition Convent in Nanuet, New York.

Father Andrei Papkov is a Russian Orthodox Archpriest and Founder and President of the Synodal School of Liturgical Music of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). He holds a master’s degree in vocal performance from New England Conservatory and is the chairman of the Synodal Liturgical Music Commission (ROCOR).

Father Andrei Papkov is a Russian Orthodox Archpriest and Founder and President of the Synodal School of Liturgical Music of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). He holds a master’s degree in vocal performance from New England Conservatory and is the chairman of the Synodal Liturgical Music Commission (ROCOR).

Irina S. Zhushchikhovskaya is Senior Researcher at the Institute of History, Archaeology, and Ethnology of Peoples of the Far East, Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladivostok. She is a specialist in ancient pottery and has published over 150 works on prehistoric ceramics.

Natalia K. Danilova is Senior Researcher in the Department of Archaeology and Ethnography, Institute of Humanitarian Research and Problems of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Science, Yakutsk. Her fields of scientific interest include mythology, ritual culture, and sacred geography of the native peoples of Siberia. She is the author of more than 100 publications.

Translator: Richard L. Bland, a retired Arctic archaeologist and translator, has translated over 250 articles and books, primarily from Russian and German, into English, including The Peoples of Ancient Siberia: An Archeological History by A. P. Okladnikov and Warfare in the Russian Arctic by A. K. Nefedkin, and the three-volume Russian Colonization of Alaska by A. V. Grinev.

Editor: Elena A. Okladnikova is an archaeologist with specialties in cultural history, sociology of spiritual life, rock art, social technologies, social anthropology, and ethnosociology. She has led archaeological expeditions in Siberia and Altai and is the author of over 400 scientific, educational, and methodological works. She is presently Professor in the Departmentof Sociology at the Institute of History and Social Sciences of the Herzen State Pedagogical University, in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Translator: Richard L. Bland, a retired Arctic archaeologist and translator, has translated over 250 articles and books, primarily from Russian and German, into English, including The Peoples of Ancient Siberia: An Archeological History by A. P. Okladnikov and Warfare in the Russian Arctic by A. K. Nefedkin, and the three-volume Russian Colonization of Alaska by A. V. Grinev.

Peter Martins was the Ballet Master in Chief of New York City Ballet for 35 years, the only person to preside over the company as long as its founder, George Balanchine. Born in Denmark, Martins began his association with NYCB in 1967, when he was invited to dance the title role in George Balanchine’s Apollo during the company’s appearance at the Edinburgh Festival. He then performed as a guest artist for three years before joining the company as a principal dancer in 1970. Prior to his retirement from dancing in 1983, Martins performed a wide variety of roles and was lauded for his outstanding partnering skills and noble stage presence. In 1981, Martins was named Ballet Master, a title he shared with Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and John Taras. From 1983 to 1989, he served as Co-Ballet Master in Chief with Robbins, running day-to-day operations. He assumed sole directorship of the company in 1990 and was also Chairman of the Faculty of the School of American Ballet, NYCB’s official school. In 2000, founded the New York Choreographic Institute.
Martins began his career as a choreographer in 1977. He has created nearly 90 ballets set to music by composers as diverse as Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Wynton Marsalis, and John Adams. His full-length productions for New York City Ballet include The Sleeping Beauty (1991), Swan Lake (1999), Romeo + Juliet (2007), and La Sylphide (2015). Martins’ autobiography, Far From Denmark, was published in 1982. Among other awards, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark made him a Knight of Dannebrog, a Knight of the First Order, and, in 2013, a Commander of the Knights of Dannebrog, Denmark’s highest civilian honor. In 2008, the French government made him a Commander in the Order of Arts and Letter. That same year, Martins was inducted into the National Museum of Dance’s Hall of Fame, in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Liudmila V. Lbova is Professor of at the Graduate School of International Relations at the Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University.
Pavel V. Volkov is Docent and Lead Researcher at Novosibirsk State University.

Translator: Richard L. Bland is Archeologist (retired) with the U.S. National Park Service, Heritage Research Associates, and the Museum of Natural and Cultural History at the University of Oregon.

Roberto Echeverran is a poet, novelist, essayist, and translator. He was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, where he studied philosophy and law. He then pursued graduate studies in philosophy at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany and received his Ph.D. at the University of Paris VIII. Echevarren taught at the University of London before a twenty-year career teaching at New York University. He has published five novels, notably his last three short novels combined under the title Archipiélago (Archipelago). He was recently awarded the 2021 Amado Alonso International Prize of Literary Criticism for his book El pensamiento chino (Chinese Thought).

Gaël-Georges Moullec is a specialist in Russian History and the history of the international communist movement. Having served as a staff officer at NATO Headquarters, he is currently lecturer at the University of Paris XIII and the Polytechnic University of Valenciennes, and Associate Researcher and Chair of Geopolitics at Rennes School of Business. He is the author of eight books including Moscou – 1917: Les rapports d’Albert Remes, consul du Royaume de Belgique and Trois instants de printemps, le renseignement diplomatique soviétique dans la France gaulliste.

Paul du Quenoy is a historian and critic. He has taught at multiple universities in the United States and abroad and is the author of four books. He holds a Ph.D. in History from Georgetown University