Why Lesley Garrett is heading to Yorkshire community hall

Lesley Garrett has released more than a dozen bestselling albums and performed on the world’s biggest stages, and with every leading orchestra.

But thanks to her upbringing in a northern colliery town in Yorkshire, her fame and fortune is rooted in her humble roots.

It’s why performing in one of Britain’s oldest Methodist churches, in Malton, which is currently being transformed into a vibrant community hub, is something she feels a powerful connection to.

“It’s where I started,” Lesley says. “Performing and creating music in the community. If I hadn’t been lucky enough to be born in South Yorkshire in Thorne, on the coalfield there with the wonderful tradition the miners had for music making I probably wouldn’t be where I am today. I didn’t go to hear an orchestra or see an opera until I was well into my teens, but we made music at home and at school, and in our local community all the time, we just never stopped. Music for me was like food and drink really, it was an essential element of life. I grew up knowing it had to be part of my life.”

Malton audiences will have the opportunity to experience Lesley’s passion for music first-hand during an evening with the star at the Wesley Centre.

Her parents both worked in the railways when she was born – her dad as a signalman and her mum as a booking clerk. Both decided to embrace education, her father studying in his signal box to get the qualifications for teacher training college.

“My father ended up as a headmaster at a school in Sheffield and my mum as head of music at a school in Doncaster. That was the most amazing example to me of what you can do when you set your mind to it. I thought if my parents can do that why can’t I became an opera singer? I never forgot where I came from. I have a house in Epworth now about five miles away from where I was born in Thorne, which is why I feel a particular kinship with this Appeal and with the Wesley Centre in Malton.”

The Appeal is a fundraising effort to transform Malton’s oldest surviving Methodist Church into a vibrant community hub, featuring a café, meeting rooms and concert hall. The chapel has dodged closure several times, particularly after its roof collapsed in 2015.

Lesley had experienced a very similar project in Epworth, a place which also has strong links to Methodism. Samuel Wesley was their rector in the 17th century, father of Charles, the hymn writer and John Wesley, the founder of Methodism.

She has lived in the village since her twenties, when she first began to earn a living as a singer after her mum and sisters moved there. Now, she splits her time between Yorkshire and London.

“I’ve helped raise money for the local church, hopefully much in the same way as when I come to the Wesley Centre. I do feel a real connection to the Wesley Centre and the idea to develop it into a place for all the community to use, with additional purposes. We did that with the Anglican Church in Epworth. It was a bit controversial – we moved the pews – but now we have this wonderful space for worship but also a fantastic concert hall, a place where the community can hold different meetings and activities, a crèche, we’ve also developed a wonderful bell ringing space underneath the tower, and a café. It’s a wonderful thing to do. It gives both the building a new lease of life and also the community. It brings us together in a really wonderful way, in a way I think churches should be used – not just for worship but for community spirit, which is what it’s all about.”

The Wesley Centre also offers a unique experience for a concert.

“It’s a beautiful building, I can’t wait to sing there, I think the acoustic is going to be fantastic looking at the height of the ceiling and the wood in there, it’s going to be great.”

Lesley hasn’t been back to Malton since her teens, when she’d stop with her parents on the way to the butchers in Pickering.

“I’m really looking forwards to coming back. It’s a beautiful town, it’s a jewel in the Yorkshire crown, so it’s going to be lovely. I can’t wait,” she said.

“What I admire is the way that Malton has hung on to its lovely old buildings and repurposed them and brought them up to date without losing the character of them; that’s what makes Malton so unique. The fact it’s saved many of its Victorian buildings and created this fantastic town that everyone wants to visit. It’s why you need the Wesley Centre to be that space where visitors can come and enjoy music, or activities that draw them to the town, as well as being for the local people.”

In terms of the evening, audiences can expect an entertaining musical journey of her life, accompanied by pianist Anna Tilbrook, who she met ten years ago when they performed in dementia and care homes for charity, and stuck together ever since.

“I basically tell the story of my life in music. I talk about where I came from and how I got to be where I am now - that serves to inform the musical choices. So I illustrate my life with music that mattered to me, music that formed me and influenced me. There’ll be a lot of music that I grew up with. I often for instance include a song from the Messiah, some Dvorak, we performed a lot of Dvorak at home and songs my mother taught me, there might be a folk song or too and there’ll definitely be some opera.”

Above all, she promises entertainment – music all will know and relate to.

“The audience get the chance to join in, ask questions, or choose songs. I let the place I perform in inspire me as to my musical choice.”

Lesley always returns to Yorkshire, as her ‘wellspring’, and passionately believes music should be nurtured in local communities, no matter how far removed it may seem from those grand opera stages.

“All artists, all musicians started in their local communities. It’s not ever to be taken for granted, it must be treasured; that idea of music and art and poetry and dance in the community, is absolutely where it all starts. I never forget where I came from and how important that early music making still informs my musical choices today. It’s vitally important to me.”

Ultimately, she wants audiences in Malton to leave feeling inspired.

“I hope they’ll leave with a sense that you really can achieve anything if you set your mind to it. I think that’s very much a Yorkshire thing, you spit on your hands you get a fresh hold and you get on with it. Yorkshire as a place is a wonderfully inspiring place to live, and I have always appreciated that and hope to pass that on.”

An Evening with Lesley Garrett takes place this Friday, July 5 at The Wesley Centre Malton, 7pm. To book online, visit www.eventbrite.co.uk