The 36-member Leningrad Boys’ Choir will perform a series of choral concerts in Maine this summer as the featured artists of the Arcady Music Society’s 10th anniversary season.

The choir will sing at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 24, at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 225 French St., Bangor. St. John’s has its own tradition of choir training for children. A few years ago, several youths from its program spent part of their summer giving concerts in Great Britain.

The Leningrad choir has been “a nursery for several world-class composers,” according to Fred Jones, organist at St. John’s. The boys are ages 11-17.

Planning for the visit to Maine began last winter when pianist Masanobu Ikemiya, Arcady’s artistic director, played a concert tour which included Leningrad and Siberian cities. Impressed with the young musicians, he urged Arcady to book the choir.

The choir dates back to the Academic Choir, founded by Czar Ivan III in 1479. In the 19th centry, the Choir College included on its faculty such celebrated Russian composers as Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Arensky, Garinov and Ljadov.

In 1858 instrumental classes were added to the vocal curriculum. All of the boys get secondary school education in addition to their musical training.

The choir will perform in Lewiston on Saturday, July 21. The same day they will visit the World Peace Camp at Poland Spring, a memorial to Samantha Smith.

From there the choir will travel to Bingham for a concert Sunday night. They will meet former Maine Sen. Margaret Chase Smith. On Monday the choir wil travel to Bar Harbor and Bangor and then to Bridgeport, Conn., and New York.

The choir is led by Vladimir Stolpovsky. The programs wil include sacred choral concertos, possibly a liturgy by Grechanioff, a Haydn Mass, songs by Tchaikovsky and other composers, spriituals, excerpts from Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass,” Russian and Georgian folk songs, and music composed by the Beatles.

The Arcady Music Society is sponsored in part by the Maine Arts Commission. Tickets are on sale at Ampersand in Orono, Foxcroft B&B in Dover-Foscroft; Libby’s Card Shop in Bangor; Mr. Paperback in Bar Harbor; Oz Bookstore, Southwest Harbor; Shanty Gift Shop, Dover-Foxcroft; and Sherman’s Bookstore in Bar Harbor.

For information on the Bangor performance call the church at 947-0156.