Masterpieces of Choral Music I Minin Choir

On February 21, 2026, a concert of the Moscow State Academic Chamber Choir (Minin Choir) took place in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. The renowned ensemble performed masterpieces of choral music, including works by Anton Bruckner, Franz Schubert, Antonio Lotti, John Tavener, Gioachino Rossini, and Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff. 

For the Minin Choir, singing sacred music is a tradition dating back to the very foundation of the ensemble. Since 1972, its founder, artistic director, and chief conductor was Vladimir Minin — a musician whose name is inextricably linked to the revival of Russian sacred music in concert practice. The concert program at the Moscow Conservatory continues this tradition and simultaneously demonstrates the modern breadth of the ensemble's repertoire under the direction of artistic director and chief conductor Timofey Goldberg. 

The concert became a kind of excursion through European choral culture. The program opened with works by Anton Bruckner, who served as an organist throughout his life. He lived music about God, and his compositions concentrate spirituality, light, and inner joy. The famous prayer «Ave Maria» by Franz Schubert, on the contrary, is restrained and confessional — the composer deliberately abandons the emotional torments characteristic of romantics. The music of Antonio Lotti transported the listener yet another era back — to the Baroque, a time when God was at the center of the worldview. The composition by John Tavener — «Mother and Child» with organ and bell — becomes a kind of reflection on what has happened, the present, and the future. The program concluded with excerpts from Gioachino Rossini's «Petite Messe Solennelle» — a work that returns the listener to the Romantic era, which also opened the program of this remarkable concert.