Northern soul (From The Northern Echo)

Northern soul

5:51pm Thursday 9th July 2009 in

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Pride of Yorkshire, Lesley Garrett CBE is headlining this year’s Harrogate International Festival. Viv Hardwick reports.

LESLEY Garrett remains a whirlwind of energy and passion. Currently starring in the West End musical Carousel, in the role of Nettie, she is still just as keen to appear tomorrow night at Harrogate International Festival – an event close to her heart.

“I’ve been many times, but not for a little while now so it will be lovely to reacquaint myself with Harrogate because its such a special place and especially the festival, which has been built up wonderfully,” she says.

Garrett made her debut at the festival 29 years ago and has returned many times. “I was lucky enough a few years ago to be performer in residence at the festival which I enjoyed very much. I performed three contrasting recitals on three consecutive weekends, which was very demanding, it required me to find three completely different programmes, three different ranges of singing, ” she explains.

This year Garrett will be performing in the refurbished Royal Hall. “I haven’t performed there before. I’ve performed at the conference centre many times with the Halle orchestra and I recorded a TV show in Harrogate (a Christmas special) so I have a lot of association with the town. But I’m going to present a completely different programme this time with lots of material people won’t have heard me sing before. I’m also bringing a young baritone which I’m also excited about – Dominic Kraemer – a recent graduate from St John’s College, Oxford.”

She recalls her own first time at the festival in “a young singers’ recital programme, to give new singers, as I was then, experience at a high level of recital giving. And I gave a recital – my first ever recital – at the Swan Hotel and it was patchy let’s say,” she laughs, “That would be a kind way of putting it – there were songs I wasn’t sure I did justice to – but it was nonetheless a fantastic opportunity for me and a great learning experience. So I asked if I might have permission to bring a young singer with me, partly to continue that wonderful tradition. And also because it would give me the opportunity to sing some duets for the public which I don’t get the chance to do that very often.”

Garrett was awarded the CBE in 2002 for her services to music. She is regarded as Britain’s most popular soprano having produced 11 solo CDs, gained countless awards and sung everywhere from Naples to New York. TV appearances include the South Bank Show, the Lily Savage Show, and Who Do You Think You Are? as well as being a contestant on the huge BBC1 hit Strictly Come Dancing in 2004.

“I don’t feel driven, I just feel as if I’m enjoying every second of my life.

I think it’s a passion to communicate: it’s a powerful urgency – a powerful sense that I need to put before the public the music I believe in, and love and feel passionate about.

“I think it’s a very spiritual experience to be honest, the sense that you are helping someone through a piece of music to find peace if they’re troubled, or to grieve if it’s a sad song that has a resonance for the listener, or to express great joy. I feel so strongly that it’s so important to society to have music available of all kinds. You know you only have to travel on the bus today and every young person will have a iPod and earphones, people of every age have to listen to a piece of music at least once a day just to feel right about themselves.

“It amazes me about the lack of music in schools because it seems to me so obvious that it matters to us all so much, and yet it’s not taken anything like as seriously in school as say reading is, and yet reading a book and listening to a piece of music to my mind are equally important.”

GARRETT, who is married to a GP, and has two teenage children, stays in the North most weekends. “It’s where I go to revive myself. It’s where I go to breathe. There’s something about taking in a lungful of Yorkshire air that’s different to anywhere else in the world: I breathe in my heritage, I breathe in my family, I breathe in the history… it will always have a vital place in my heart. All my family still live in Yorkshire, I have a home in Yorkshire, and I always will have.”

Born and bred in Doncaster, she says: “Both my parents, who worked on the railways, decided to become school teachers and in the case of my father, ultimately, he became a headmaster. And they had great ambition and had to work extremely hard to realise that ambition. That was a wonderful example to me and made me think, yes I can become an opera singer, my father’s just become a headmaster, my mother became head of music in a middle school.

They took an enormous risk giving up jobs to bring three children up on a grant.”

She laments the fact that, nowadays, grants don’t exist. “In my case I was extremely fortunate to receive an award from the local education authority that enabled me to go on and study at the Royal Academy of Music, which is simply not available now.”

On the future, Garrett admits: “I never plan. I just wait to see what comes up and something always does.

And I’m always extraordinarily surprised and grateful that people still want to hear me sing, so no, I’m not really planning on slowing down.

You’ll find that people who have enormous success are very hard working and you can’t switch that off.

Once that motor is running then move out of the way,” she laughs.

“When I first performed at the Harrogate Festival in 1980, it marked the first year of my professional life. I sang just as I was leaving the National Opera Studio, that was my first recital… so I’ve everything to thank the Harrogate Festival for. And I’m thrilled to be back there in my 29th year, and I hope I can visit in my 30th year and have a party.”

■ The Gala Festival Concert featuring Lesley Garrett, sponsored by Deloitte, at the Royal Hall, tomorrow. Ticket hotline: 0845-130- 8840

■ The Young Musicians in Residence programme will feature upcoming artists appearing in bars, street corners and in unexpected places across Harrogate until July.

The Young Musician Series begins next Thursday at various locations throughout Harrogate – visit harrogate-festival.org.uk where you can also make bookings