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| View across the river to Canary Wharf |
Steve is a student at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. As campuses go, it doesn't come much more impressive, Trinity Laban having taken over a wing of the Old Royal Naval College overlooking the Thames. The chapel was originally designed by Sir Christopher Wren but its interior was completely recreated following a fire in 1779. Now it's a temple to Greek neoclassicism and an extra special location for a recital.
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| The chapel ceiling |
Sitting in the pew waiting for Steve to appear there was time to admire the surroundings, from the vast painting behind the altar to the ocean-themed marble floor.
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| The original altarpiece painting by Benjamin West |
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| Naval themes underfoot |
Steve arrived and took a bow with his accompanist, Alexandra Kremakova, a pianist from Bulgaria and a fellow student at Trinity Laban. She contributed a solo piece, too, a furiously fast piece that involved her, at one point, banging the top of the piano with her hand. "The directions were there in the music, so that's what I did," she told us afterwards. Intriguing.
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| Steve takes a bow |
Steve's programme included a series of pastoral songs by George Butterworth, a Purcell drinking song (yes, really) and a sublime Russian section of Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky pieces. With his gorgeously rich bass baritone voice filling the sacred space most divinely, all were so grateful to have ventured out.
