Did you
Know?
Lesley Garret
was born on 10th April 1955. She is the eldest of three girls. Her sisters are
Jill, who was born in 1957, and Kay, who was born in 1959.
As a young
teenager, her first "job" was helping out at a fruit and veg stall on Thorne
market, for which she earned £1 a week. This occupation ended one bitterly cold
November day, when she collapsed from the cold.
Her first
"Starring Role" was as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, in a performance by the
group-singing class, run by Vivien Pike, on Saturdays, at a school in
Wath.
In the spring
of 1973, aged 18, Lesley auditioned for the Royal Academy of Music. Her
performance was so outstanding, she was told immediately, she could have a place
that September.
While studying at the Royal Academy of Music, Lesley supplemented
her income as a nude model, for both paintings and sculptures. She can still be
found, nude, in many North London gardens.
Lesley is a
member of the board of the English National Opera. Fortunately, for music lovers
everywhere, this does not prevent her from continuing to perform.
Lesley has
been married twice. Her first marriage was to Malcolm Abbott, the marriage
failing due to the pressure of her work and the constant travelling. She is
currently married to Peter, with whom she has two children, Jeremy and
Chloe.
Lesley
narrowly missed being killed, when the car she and Peter were travelling in, was
involved in a head on collision with another vehicle. Having been knocked
unconscious, she escaped from the car, which was filling with smoke, with a
broken collar bone and several cracked ribs.
While visiting
Haddo House, the ancient home of Lady Aberdeen, Lesley was shown to her room by
a grey-haired lady in a flowery apron, who she assumed was a housekeeper. She
informed the "housekeeper" that she'd heard Lady Aberdeen could be "a bit of an
old battle-axe". Imagine lesley's horror, when the "housekeeper" replied "I am
she, you have already met her".
During a
rehearsal of the Fairy Queen, in Italy, Lesley fell and, whilst not doing
herself any serious damage, broke her radio microphone. With no replacement
available, a hand-held microphone was borrowed from a visiting BBC documentary
team. The microphone was wedge down the front of her costume, in a convenient
"crevice", and the show went on as scheduled.
Her album "
Soprano in Red" stayed in the classical charts for months and won Gramophone
Magazine's award for the Best Selling Record of 1996.
Lesley sang on
the BBC recording of Perfect Day, sold in aid of Children in Need.
Lesley
has appeared with many other performers, not all of which are Classical
performers. Included in this list are Gary Barlow, Michael Ball, Lilly Savage,
Patricia Hodge and Birds of a Feather's Pauline Quirk and Linda Robson. The
"Birds of a Feather" performance (part of the "Jobs for the Girls" TV
series) saw Lesley, Pauline and Linda singing Rule Britannia, in front of a live
audience of 8,000, in an open air concert at Kenwood House.
Not content
with being a world class singer, Lesley Garrett is also an authoress, with the
recent publication of her autobiography "Notes From a Small
Soprano".
Lesley has been rewarded for her dedication to music, with a CBE in the 2002 New
Years Honours List.
