The YRC was the first American group to visit the Soviet Union as a private initiative, touring the country in 1958 following the signing of the Lacy-Zarubin Agreement on cultural exchange.

The chorus rehearses for two and a half hours every week, holds concerts in and around New Haven throughout the academic year, and goes on an annual spring tour.

The chorus has performed at many venues in Russia and Ukraine, and also many places in the United States, most notably:[3] The Alumni of the Yale Russian Chorus have formed a performing group in their own right to preserve the Mickiewicz tradition and presented a 60th Anniversary concert at Yale in November 2013.

[5] The Yale Russian Chorus Alumni sang a full-length concert in April 2015 at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, on the UPenn campus.

[6][7] Musical examples from a YRC alumni concert at Duke University in November 2009 include Akh ty step shirokaya (Ах, ты степь широкая) ("O thou steppe so wide"), Blazhen Muzh (Блажен муж) ("Blessed is the man"), Borodino (Бородино) ("Borodino" [a poem by M.Yu.Lermontov commemorating the battle against Napoleon's armies in the village outside Moscow]), Kas Tie Tadi (Who Are They), and Zhilo dvenadtsat razboinikov (Жило двенадцать разбойников) ("There were 12 robbers").