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The State Symphony Capella of Russia brings together over 200 musicians including the choir, the orchestra, and vocal soloists. The State Capella was created in 1991 by merging the USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra led by Gennady Rozhdestvensky, and the USSR State Chamber Choir led by Valery Polyansky. 

Founded in 1957, the orchestra was a subordinate division of the Soviet Radio and Television until 1982, when it came to be known as the USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra led by Samuil Samosud, Yuri Aranovich and Maxim Shostakovich. Outstanding conductors including Evgeny Svetlanov, Natan Rakhlin, Neeme Järvi, Vladimir Fedoseev etc. appeared with the musicians. The orchestra has performed at the world’s most prestigious stages such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, Kennedy Center in Washington DC, Musikverein in Vienna, Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Barbican Center in London, Karajan Hall at the Berlin Philharmonie as well as the best venues of Tokyo, Taipei, Helsinki, Barcelona, Prague, and other musical centers of the world. The orchestra has recorded numerous LPs and CDs, mostly released by Melodiya and Chandos.

The chamber choir was established by Valery Polyansky in 1971. In 1975, the ensemble triumphed at the Guido d'Arezzo International Competition in Italy, winning the Gold Medal in Academic Singing category and the Golden Bell, the emblem of the best choir of the contest. In 1980, the company changed its status to become the USSR Ministry of Culture State Chamber Choir. Touring across all Soviet republics, it initiated a festival in Polotsk. In 1986, invited by Sviatoslav Richter, the choir presented a Tchaikovsky program at the December Nights festival, and in 1994 it performed All-Night Vigil by Rachmaninoff. The State Chamber Choir and its leader have acquired great international reputation with their successful performances at the Singing Wrocław (Poland), Merano and Spoleto (Italy), İzmir (Turkey), Naarden (Netherlands) festivals; BBC Proms in London's Albert Hall (UK), as well as in the historic cathedrals of France in Bordeaux, Amiens and Albi. 

December 27, 1991, when the ensemble conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky performed Wedding Shirts by Dvořák at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, is considered the birthday of the State Capella. In 1992, Valery Polyansky became the artistic director and chief conductor of company. 

The choir and the orchestra of the Capella perform both jointly and separately. The company and its chief conductor are welcome guests at the best Moscow venues, regularly appearing at subscriptions concerts of the Moscow Philharmonic, the Moscow Conservatory and the Moscow International House of Music. The team has toured in the USA, Europe and Southeast Asia. In Japan, the Capella orchestra recorded Tchaikovsky symphonies and Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. 

The company’s repertoire mainly includes large-scale vocal works: cantatas, masses, oratorios, requiems of all times and styles composed by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Berlioz, Liszt, Verdi, Dvořák, Rachmaninoff, Reger, Stravinsky, Britten, Shostakovich, Schnittke, Eshpai. Valery Polyansky regularly runs monographic symphonic concert cycles featuring works of Beethoven, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Mahler and other great composers. 

The Capella partners with many prominent Russian and international performers. A bond of lasting friendship was formed between the company and Gennady Rozhdestvensky, who for many years presented his personal philharmonic subscription series with the State Capella of Russia. 

Since 2009, the Capella has been organising the September Nights festival in Tarusa jointly with the Svyatoslav Richter Foundation, presenting symphonic and choral masterpieces to the audiences of Torzhok, Tver and Kaluga. In 2011, in Yelets, the company participated in the world premiere of The Legend of the City of Yelets, the Virgin Mary and Tamerlane, an opera by Alexander Tchaikovsky directed by Georgy Isahakyan. 

The State Capella’s repertoire policy reflects important historical dates. To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the victory in the 1812 Patriotic War, they run a concert performance of the War and Peace by Prokofiev in Torzhok and Kaluga. The 400th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty translated into the world premiere of the The Sovereign's Affair, an oratorio by Alexander Tchaikovsky (2013, Lipetsk, Moscow) and A Life for the Tsar by Glinka performed on the New Stage of the Bolshoi Theater of Russia. Concert performances of the opera Semyon Kotko by Prokofiev by the State Capella in 2014 at the New Stage of the Bolshoi Theater and at the Central Academic Theater of the Russian Army were timed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. At the same venues, the company celebrated the 70th anniversary of the WWII Victory, performing Kirill Molchanov’s opera The Dawns Here Are Quiet. The 2019/20 season was opened with a concert version of Verdi's Othello. 

In October 2016, the orchestra and the choir took part in the 4th Symphony Forum of Russia in Yekaterinburg, performing Dream Vision of the Peasant Lad from The Fair at Sorochyntsi by Mussorgsky and his Pictures at an Exhibition orchestrated by Ravel, as well as an orchestra version of Les Noces and Symphony of Psalms by Stravinsky. As part of Russian Philharmonic Seasons program, the State Capella has repeatedly appeared in Kaliningrad, a special tour destination for the company: in 2018 the choir conducted by Valery Polyansky performed All-Night Vigil by Rachmaninoff, and two years later presented the concert version of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at the Kaliningrad Regional Drama Theater. In the first half of 2020, the State Capella chose to stream its most significant projects of past years online. In particular, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the end of the Great Patriotic War, a recording of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony was streamed from the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.

Philipp Chizhevsky was born in Moscow in 1984. He graduated from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory with a double degree in choral conducting (2008, class of Professor Stanislav Kalinin) and opera and symphonic conducting (2010, class of Professor Valery Poliansky). He then worked as a choirmaster and conducting trainer at the Gnessin State Musical College. In 2008, he became a prize-winner of the Russian National Conductors' Competition in Moscow.

The same year, he and Maria Grilikhes co-founded Questa Musica ensemble performing in Russia and abroad. He has led the ensemble through many large-scale projects such as Purcell's Dido and Aeneas at the Arkhangelskoye estate and museum (2011, directed by Alisher Khasanov) and The Fairy Queen at the Great Hall of the Conservatory (2017), Sergei Nevsky’s Francis at the Bolshoi Theater (2012, staged by Vladimir Bocharov), Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale at Na Strastnom Theatre Centre (2013, choreography by Oleg Glushkov), Drillalians opera series at Stanislavsky Electrotheatre (2015, directed by Boris Yukhananov, composers: Dmitry Kurlyandsky, Boris Filanovsky, Alexey Syumak, Sergei Nevsky, Alexey Sysoev, Viadimir Rannev), Galileo opera for violin and scientist at Stanislavsky Electrotheatre (2017, idea by Elena Revich, directed by Boris Yukhananov), and Haendel's Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno at the Moscow State Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre(2018, directed by Konstantin Bogomolov).

Since 2011, Chizhevsky has been conducting the State Symphony Capella of Russia (Artistic Director and Principal Conductor: Valery Polyansky). He assisted Gennady Rozhdestvensky in rehearsing the orchestra's subscription concerts and conducted the orchestra at the 1st All-Russian Music Competition, which brought him a letter of acknowledgement from the Russian Ministry of Culture. Philipp Chizhevsky conducted the premiere of Michael Nyman’s opera Prologue to Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell in Perm (2012).

In 2014, he directed and conducted Mozart's Così fan tutte at the Buryat State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater (stage director Hans-Joachim Frey). In partnership with Vladimir Jurowski and Fuad Ibrahimov, he conducted the Russian premiere of Stockhausen's Gruppen for three orchestras and three conductors as part of Another Space festival (2016) at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. In 2018, he conducted the world premiere of Giya Kancheli's T–S–D for cello and orchestra at the opening of the 10th edition of VIVACELLO festival.

Since 2014, Chizhevsky has been a guest conductor with the Russian Bolshoi Theatre. In the 2014/15 season, he was the artistic director of the 1st Baroque Festival of the Bolshoi. As a conductor and stage director, he has been engaged in several productions, including Offenbach's La Périchole at the Bolshoi Chamber Stage (2019, stage director Philipp Grigoryan) and one-act operas The Diary of Anne Frank by Grigory Frid and Weiße Rose by Udo Zimmermann (2021, stage director Hans-Joachim Frey). At the Perm Tchaikovsky Opera and Ballet Theatre, Philipp Chizlevsky regularly conducts Bizet' Carmen staged by Konstantin Bogomolov (2021).

He has been collaborating with Russian and international orchestras, including Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia, Novaya Rossiya State Symphony Orchestra, Russian Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestra of the Kolobov Novaya Opera Theatre (Moscow), Musica Viva Moscow Chamber Orchestra, State Academic Chamber Orchestra of Russia, Brandenburger Symphoniker, Tokyo New Symphony Orchestra, and others. Since 2024, Philipp Chizhevsky has been Artistic Director of the Svetlanov Symphony Orchestra.

His recordings feature Sketches to Sunset and Russian Seasons by Leonid Desyatnikov (with violinist Roman Mints, Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, and Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra), and Boris Papandopulo's Piano Concerto (with pianist Andrey Gugnin and Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra).

In 2019, he received the BraVo International Professional Music Award and the Golden Mask Russian National Theatre Award for the production of Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre. Beforehand, he had been nominated three times for the Golden Mask award.

Since 2011, Philipp Chizhevsky has been teaching at the Moscow Conservatory. Furthermore, he is the Artictic Director of Cantata annual international music festival in Kaliningrad.