Today’s free lunchtime concert in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre was given by Canadian bass, Robert Pomakov and the Gryphon Trio (Annalee Patipatanakoon – violin, Roman Borys – cello, Jamie Parker – piano).

First up we got Parker and Pomakov performing Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte.  Pomakov has a big voice as I knew from having heard his Monterone twice this month at the Four Seasons Centre.  I was impressed by how well he could scale back his volume and even more impressed by the wide and appropriate range of tone colours he deployed.  He doesn’t sound entirely secure at ppp but for a voice of his type he was pretty good!  Next the Gryphons gave us the Elegia from Arensky’s piano trio.  I don’t know this work at all but they sounded very accomplished and musical.  The finale was Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death in Gary Kulesha’s arrangement for voice and piano trio.  This time Pomakov could let rip with all his considerable power accompanied with equal fervour by the Gryphons.  The whole thing was very impressive and very loud!

The scary thing is that Pomakov has only just turned thirty and already has this huge sound.  Apparently he’s had it for a while because he’s sung in twenty COC productions going back ten seasons. I did check out Youtube to see if I could find Pomakov and there is one clip of him singing the Russian National Anthem at the World Cup of Hockey in 2004. Here it is.