Достойно есть (It is Truly Meet)
Заздравная чаша (Grace Cup)
Предначинательный псалом (Proemial Psalm)
Достойно есть (It is Truly Meet)
Дмитрий Бортнянский: Херувимская песнь (Dmitry Bortniansky: Song of the Cherubim)
Павел Чесноков: Спаси, Боже, люди Твоя (Pavel Chesnokov: Save, O Lord, Thy people)
Константин Шведов: Благослови, душе моя, Господа (Constantin Shvedov: Praise the Lord, My Soul)
На гору Сион (Upon Mount Zion); Блажен муж (Blessed is the Man); Исаие, ликуй (Isaiah, Rejoice)
Георгий Свиридов: Душа грустит о небесах (Georgy Sviridov: The Soul Longs for Heaven)
Георгий Свиридов: Любовь святая (Georgy Sviridov: Holy Love)
Легенда о 12 разбойниках (Legend of the Twelve Robbers)
Михаил Глинка: Венецианская ночь (Mikhail Glinka: Venetian Night)
Александр Свешников: Что не белая берёза (Alexander Sveshnikov: It is not the White Birch)
Николай Римский-Корсаков: Полёт шмеля (Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Flight of the Bumblebee)
Выхожу один я на дорогу (I Go Out on the Road Alone)
Из-за острова на стрежень (From Behind the Island Into the Channel)
Степь да степь кругом (Steppe Only Steppe All Around)
Гори гори, моя звезда (Shine, Shine, My Star)
Однозвучно гремит колокольчик (Monotonously the Hand Bell Rattles)

The Optina Pustyn male choir was founded in 1996 in the Cathedral of Dormition of the Theotokos on Vasilevskiy Island in St. Petersburg, which had become Metochion of the Optina Pustyn monastery in 1991. During the services, the choir performs Kiev 17th-century church music which was the base for all printed editions of monophonic church service books. In addition to the transcriptions of the old Russian polyphonic chants, the choir also performs their own compositions, as well as new music written „in old style“, as well as the most interesting pieces of the church composers.
During two decades of its creative work, the Optina Pustyn choir has become a regular participant at various Russian and international festivals. In St. Petersburg the choir has been performing continuously in all of the main concert halls: the Large and Small Hall of the Philharmonic, the Hall of the Court Chapel, the October Hall etc. The choir has also performed in over 25 cities in Russia, all the way from Moscow to South Sakhalinsk. The Optina Pustyn has also stepped on the stages of Hungary, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, China, Columbia, Norway, Serbia, Estonia, Ukraine... Notwithstanding perfect acoustic traits of the great concert halls, the old chants sound particularly impressive when sung at the old churches such as the Dormition Cathedral in Moscow, Saint Sophia’s Cathedral in Kiev and Novgorod, as well as in the short-lived capital of Ivan the Terrible, Aleksandrova Sloboda. Over the years, the choir has recorded 15 CDs.
The Optina Pustyn presents the original, unaltered music, preserving hystorical and artistic paralels of various genres and styles od church music. They also held a concert at the Regensburg Museum of History, titled “The Chants of the Ancient Church“ which included the original Gregorian, Ambrosian, Byzantine, Armenian and Georgian chants of the V-XV century. The choir presented a new program, Ars Antiqua & Ars Nova, in collaboration with the Belgian conductor Paul Van Nevel (founder and conductor of the Huelgas Ensemble), which presented the chants of XIII-XVI century by the old French and Flemish composers. They also held a concert at the Small Hall of the Philharmonic named “The Chants of the Choir of the Church Singers of the Court“. This concert programme presented the chants of the best known chanting tradition of Russia, accompanied by the music and historic comments on the times of Ivan III, Ivan IV, Fyodor Ivanovich, Aleksey Mikhailovich an Peter I.

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