The significance of the indepth analytical work of future musicians and teachers with the artistic image and its need for the process of conducting training are considered in the article. As the most important mechanism for the formation of students’ analytical competencies, the conceptual method by A. I. Demchenko for musicalhistorical analysis of choral works is considered. The essence of the proposed method is to determine the leading idea of the work and its subsequent disclosure in the form of a plan of capacious theses that concentrate the musical content. The features of its application in the conditions of university conducting and choral training are examined on the example of an analysis of a Russian spiritual concert of the last third of the 20th century, represented in the works by A. G. Schnittke – “Concert on verses by Grigor Narekatsi”, “Penance poems” and G. V. Sviridov “Concert in memory of A. A. Yurlov”. Two interrelated directions for training are proposed in the conducting class: analysis of spiritual concerts through the prism of the genre and through the prism of musical drama. The twovector orientation of the study of compositions provides the opportunity for students to fully understand the phenomenon of a spiritual concert in modern musical art, not only to understand the trends leading to the emergence of its innovative models, but also to clarify students’ ideas about ways to discover musical content during performance. A direct study of the conceptual method of musical and historical analysis of choral works by students allows to avoid the narrowly professional interpretation of the conductor’s activity, to overcome the unambiguousness and static character of the performing interpretations of the musical text.