The participants of the festival, Days of American Culture in Russia, included Boston University Hillel Rabbi Joseph Polak, assistant to Vice President in Public Relations and the EBP Advisor Kevin Carleton, Professor of Musicology Jeremy Yudkin, and the EBP Director, Dr. Ludmilla Leibman.

The schedule of the trip included:

Publicity event for the Educational Bridge Project: the concert of the dignitaries, prominent scholars, diplomats, and bankers from different countries on May 26, 2004, in the Hermitage Theater in St. Petersburg.  Participants included Professor Mark Ptashne, a Lasker Prize recipient, from the US, as well as German diplomat and Russian banker.  Pre-concert talk by the President of the St. Petersburg Composers’ Union Andrei Petrov. Organized by Anna Konivets and Dmitry Varygin from the Hermitage museum and Eduard Sorin, Executive Director of the Sol Hurok Foundation.

The Holocaust Education Seminar in Moscow, May 28-30, 2004.  Four lectures given by Ludmilla Leibman at the Seminar included the following topics:

• • The Course, "The Holocaust and Music", at Boston University:  Goals, Expectations, Curriculum and Students' Responses"
  • Spiritual Resistance: Music of the Ghettos and Concentration Camps
  • A Survivor From Warsaw by Arnold Schoenberg:  First Musical Response to the Tragedy
  • Contemporary Composer Contemplate the Holocaust: Steve Reich Different Trains

Three meetings of the Organizational Committee of the Musicological Conference, “Word as Musical Metaphor”,  June 2-4, 2004

Two talks, by BU Hillel Rabbi Polak, for the Jewish Education Committees’ representatives in Moscow and St. Petersburg, May 31and June 4, 2004

Continuing work on preparation for the publication of the collection of essays by 18 young musicologists from St. Petersburg and Boston.  Jeremy Yudkin and Marina Kornakova, chief editors, led the discussions.