On April 16, 2015, the "Live Ideas" festival sponsored every year by New York Live Arts featured the life and work of famed Orthodox composer Arvo Pärt. Renowned musician Laurie Anderson, the festival's curator, enlisted the Arvo Pärt Project at St. Vladimir's Seminary to help her plan and organize three events with the theme "Arvo Pärt: Journeys in Silence." The festival was also the ideal venue for the public debut of the new SVS Press book Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence authored by Dr. Peter Bouteneff, associate professor of Systematic Theology. Book signings by the author were held several times throughout the course of the day.
"The release of the book tied in perfectly with the day's discussions," noted the Reverend Dn. Gregory Hatrak, director of Marketing and Operations for SVS Press and Bookstore. "We received many words of thanks for publishing a work dedicated to Arvo Pärt's faith."
dded Dr. Bouteneff, "I wrote this book with a widely diverse readership in mind — within and also outside the Church. The
enthusiasm of this festival audience for our panel discussions, and for my book, was so exciting to see. St. Vladimir's Seminary's deeper engagement with the arts – visual and musical – is already having tangible implications for its outreach into communities we've never before been able to reach."
The Project at St. Vladimir's Seminary is an important component in the Seminary's plans for a new Institute of Sacred Arts. The Institute is described in the Board of Trustees' 2020 Strategic Plan.
Read about the seminary's 2014 Arvo Pärt Carnegie Hall concert.
A reviewer writes about the book on Goodreads
