NEW YORK: 15 August 2024
The 34th Synodal Liturgical Music School in memory of Metropolitan Laurus of blessed memory is held
 The 34th annual summer session of the Synodal School of Liturgical Music (SSLM) opened on Sunday, July 14, 2024, with a moleben at Holy Dormition Convent “Novo-Diveevo” in Nanuet, New York. Following the moleben, students and faculty gathered in the main hall of the Convent’s former Old Persons’ Home, which for four years now has served as SSLM’s “campus,” for an introductory session at which the students were welcomed to what promised to be “among the hardest but most rewarding two weeks” of their lives.
Indeed, over the course of two weeks, students were immersed in courses in Typicon, choir conducting, voice, Church Slavonic, church music history, liturgical performance practice, music theory, and sight-singing, with classes beginning at 8 a.m. and lasting until 6:30 p.m. Two choir rehearsals were held daily, at which students put their choir conducting skills to the test and conducting instructors worked with the choir to learn pieces for a hierarchical service and the closing day moleben. Additionally, second- and third-year students were divided into small groups, each responsible for putting together and singing at least two daily services at the Convent’s main church.
On Wednesday, July 24, His Grace, Bishop Theodosius of Seattle, served at the Convent on the feast day of the holy, right-believing Princess Olga of Kiev. The choir, composed of SSLM faculty and students under the direction of choral methods instructor Nikolai Kovalenko sang beautifully, including among other things a setting of the exapostilarion to St. Olga harmonized by Fr. Serge Arlievsky especially for this occasion. Vladyka Theodosius joined SSLM for lunch following liturgy, at which time he spoke warmly of his own love for church music, recalled his own experiences singing with the brotherhood of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, and emphasized the school’s contributions to preserving and strengthening ROCOR’s musical traditions. Notably, he singled out the role played by SSLM founder and Director, Archpriest Andre Papkov, who has led the school for more than three decades and to this day serves as the chairman of the Synodal Liturgical Music Commission.
Despite the inauspicious economic circumstances, the school was able to keep tuition costs down this year, due in large part to financial support from the Fund for Assistance to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. The school also received a donation of two high-quality electronic keyboards from the ARAA/Otrada Prince Sergei Belosselsky-Belozersky Charitable Fund.
On Saturday, July 27, the school began its closing day ceremonies with a conducting final exam, during which the graduating students demonstrated the results of two weeks’ work with the SSLM choir. A Thanksgiving moleben followed immediately after the exam, served by the Convent’s cleric Priest Artemy Siss and conducted by SSLM faculty member Peter Fekula. At the conclusion of the moleben, the graduates – Morgan Maudiere, Anna Rakova, and Timothy Zelinsky – received their certificates of completion as “conductors-precentors” (regent-psalomshchik).
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