RESIDENCY PROGRAM DIRECTOR, ORDER OF SERVICES

Anastasia Kappanadze collaborated in the founding of the St. Tikhon’s Music Program in 2021 and currently serves as the Music Residency Director. Additionally, she teaches a course on the Order of Services and directs the monastery’s Mixed Choir. In the past decade, she taught music in various New York schools, directed an OCA parish choir while assisting in parishes of different jurisdictions, and performed with several choral groups in the Northeast. Anastasia is particularly interested in the training of current and future generations of Orthodox church musicians in North America. Since starting work at St. Tikhon’s Monastery, she has directed the Women’s Choir and taught liturgical music for St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. She also offers private classes in musicianship to seminary wives and Church Slavonic to seminarians. Outside of St. Tikhon’s, Anastasia is part of the faculty in ROCOR’s Synodal School of Liturgical Music and OCA’s online music classes.

Education —

M.A.T. in Applied Music and Music Teaching, Lehman College, 2019

M.M. in Conducting, Bard College Conservatory of Music, 2015

B.A. in Music, Bard College, 2013

CONDUCTING, VOCAL & CHORAL METHODS

Fr. Caleb Lewis is a priest of the Orthodox Church and serves at the Monastery of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk. He acts as Director of Music for the monastery and seminary communities, serving on the faculty of St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary as well as for the St. Tikhon’s Music Program. Prior to moving to Pennsylvania with his wife, Dr. Tabitha Lewis, Fr. Caleb was Director of Choirs at the University of California, Davis. He worked throughout the San Francisco Bay Area as a conductor, clinician, baritone soloist, and chorister with such ensembles as the American Bach Soloists, the San Francisco Choral Artists, and the San Francisco Bach Choir. He is committed to preparing future church musicians and priests who can beautify the worship of the Orthodox Church.

Education —

M.Div. St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary

D.Mus. in Choral Conducting, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music

M.M. in Choral Conducting, Emory University

B.M. in Church Music, Furman University

VOICE LESSONS, INTRO TO MUSIC THEORY & COMPOSITION, MUSICIANSHIP / AURAL SKILLS

Dr. Tabitha Lewis serves on the faculty at the Monastery of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk Music Program. Her previous academic appointments were at Georgia College and State University and Indiana University. In addition to these appointments, she also served as an instructor for the OCA’s Basic Sight Singing and Ear Training course and has maintained a private studio since 2013. As a performer, she enjoys singing with the Clarion Choir and Conspirare. She can be heard as a featured soloist on recordings with The St. Tikhon Choir (Vespers) and NOTUS (of radiance & refraction) and in the chorus of Conspirare (Earth Vigil). Previous choral appointments saw her with Volti in San Francisco, Vox Musica in Sacramento, and Aire Born Recording Group in Indianapolis. Her operatic credits include Rosalba in Florencia en el Amazonas, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Gretel in Hansel and Gretel, and a bevy of musical theater and Gilbert and Sullivan. Her concert work includes Mozart's Requiem, Mahler's Symphony No. 2, and Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass. In 2022, she won 3rd place in the Art Song division of the American Prize.

Education —

D.Mus in Vocal Performance and Literature, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, 2019

M.M. in Vocal Performance, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, 2015

B.M. in Vocal Performance, Wheaton College, 2013

HISTORY OF SACRED MUSIC

Mikel Hill is a priest of the Orthodox Church and the managing editor of St. Tikhon’s Monastery Press. He has performed professionally as a tenor in a wide range of ensembles. He also enjoys playing piano, violin, cello, viol da gamba, and mandolin. Fr. Mikel is active as a composer of chamber music and recently completed a song cycle for soprano, baritone, piano, cello, and flute. An avid historian of the late Victorian period, Fr. Mikel is completing a monograph on the life and work of the Russian-born, American choral conductor, Ivan Gorokhov. He is a member of the American Musicology Society and the Society of Christian Scholarship in Music, for which he has presented several papers. Fr Mikel also enjoys fine woodworking, 19th-century literature, traveling to England any chance that comes his way, and a good cup of coffee. Fr. Mikel, his wife Rachel, and their five children have lived at St. Tikhon’s Monastery since 2018.

Education —

M. Div., St Tikhon’s Seminary, South Canaan, Penn., 2017

Bach. in Musical Arts. Bowling Green State University, 2014