The Chamber Choir of the Voronezh Institute of Arts was formed in 1976 by Professor Oleg Shepel from a group of Student singers and was soon enlarged by the teachers and graduates of the choir conducting department of the Institute. The singers are all highly committed musicians who have acquired a wide experience in choral singing.

Founded in Voronezh, the choir performs not only in the city and the region, but has toured throughout the Soviet Union. It has twice toured the United Kingdom, in 1989 and 1990, at the invitation of the New London Chamber Choir. During the course of these visits it has on three occasions made recordings of Russian liturgical music for the BBC. The choir also gave concerts in Germany in 1990.

During the fifteen years of its activity the Voronezh Chamber Choir has gained a high reputation for its versatile and often unfamiliar repertoire ranging through the centuries. This includes much large-scale music by Bach, Haydn and Mozart, a wide range of Russian sacred music, as well as the Russian classics and music by twentieth-century composers such as Bernstein, Britten, Gershwin, Sviridov and Shchedrin. They also sing more lighthearted works by the local musicians Nosyrev and Belyaev and special arrangements of Russian folksongs. During the spring of 1990 the choir made two recordings for Melodiya.