The St Petersburg Lege Artis Choir (in the Name of Art), founded in 1987 by Boris Abalyan, is a historical choir based in Russia’s second city, and a cite of reference for the choral art across the world.

 

The original choir was formed of a group of young professional singers of the Saint Petersburg Conservatoire, all of them former students there. Over the years, the choir has become an institution and unique occasions for generations of choristes who have had the chance to make up part of the most famous choral institutions in Russia.

 

The choir’s first concert took place on 14th February 1988 in the hall of the Alexander Pushkin Museum, and over a very short period of time it has become one of the most important choirs in Russia and the whole world.

 

From 1990 to 1997 the choir won five prizes in international concerts : the 1990 Neeperlt prize in Belgium, the 1991 Montreux prize in Switzerland, the 1991 Tours prize, the 1995 Darmstadt prize, where it won in the categoies of ‘Mixed Choir’, ‘Male Choir’ and ‘Sacred Music’, and the 1997 Torrevieja prize in Spain.

 

Their a cappella programmes include both the rich and historic choral Russian repertoire (Mikail Ippolitov-Ivanov, Rachmaninov, Bortniansky, Chesnokov, ,..) and the European repertoire in general, from sacred song to the traditional repertoire, extending to cantatas and oratorios, and in particular the works of Stravinsky, Debussy, Poulenc, P. Hindemith and Penderecki. They also sing works of lesser known Russian composers such as Valeri Gavrilin, Sergei Slominski, Alexander Knaifel and Dmitri V. Smirnov.

 

Lege Artis  excels in interpretations of 20th century music, and its activity has also contributed to the renaissance of an extraordinary repertoire of both sacred and profane vocal music in Russia that had previously fallen into oblivion.

 

Today, the choir is considered a treasure of Russia’s musical life.