✨ State Academic Capella

Санкт-Петербург, наб. реки Мойки, 20

Russia's oldest professional choir, in a building with a 19th-century concert hall by the Singing Bridge.

The choir traces its history to 1476, when Ivan III established the Choir of the Sovereign's Singing Clerks in Moscow.
In 1479 the singers sang at the consecration of the Dormition Cathedral in the Kremlin.
On 16 May 1703 the choir took part in the service at the founding of Petersburg.
From 1796 the Capella was led by the composer Dmitry Bortniansky, later by Balakirev and Arensky.
The building at Moika 20 was rebuilt in 1886–1889 to a design by Leontiy Benois.
Among the Capella's teachers were Mikhail Glinka and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
Women's voices in the choir, traditionally all-male, appeared only in 1920.

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