Her grandfather Colin Wall was a classical pianist; her father Derek worked as a railway signalman and then as a schoolteacher at Hatfield Woodhouse Primary School, eventually going on to become a headmaster.
A graduate of the Royal Academy of Music and an alumna of the prestigious National Opera Studio, she won the Decca Prize of the Kathleen Ferrier Award in 1979, thereby launching her career.
[6] Garrett has performed across the world, in countries throughout Europe, and also the United States, Australia, Russia, Brazil, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan and South Korea.
She has also sung opera and pop classics with Bryan Ferry, Eurythmics and Mick Hucknall to celebrate the arrival of the new century on Millennium Eve in the grounds at the Royal Observatory and National Maritime Museum.
[7] She played the lead role of Hanna Glawari in the Welsh National Opera's production of The Merry Widow, which toured the United Kingdom in 2005.
She also sang the British national anthem on the Champs-Élysées in Paris in 2012 after Bradley Wiggins became the first Briton to win the Tour de France, though her performance was not universally appreciated.
She was delighted to discover that the musical gene stretched far back and had run in her family for several generations: her maternal grandfather made a living playing the piano with a small orchestra that accompanied silent films at cinemas in and around Sheffield.
On Christmas Day 2004, BBC Two broadcast Lesley Garrett – Music from the Movies, co-starring her with Ruthie Henshall, Michael McCarthy with the backing of the Opera North orchestra.
[13] In February 2005, Garrett was selected to be one of the judges for BBC's Comic Relief does Fame Academy, and in May she hosted and sang at the 2005 Classical BRIT Awards at the Royal Albert Hall on ITV.
She featured on the TV show My Life on a Plate on 10 September 2017; chef Brian Turner accompanied her on a trip to key locations from her childhood in Yorkshire, where she was taught by her parents to make the most out of what was available.
[7] Garrett created the role of Cathy in the London studio recording of Bernard J. Taylor's operatic version of Wuthering Heights, which also featured Dave Willetts, Bonnie Langford and other leading British musical theatre performers.
Other recordings include complete audio operas: Mozart's The Magic Flute (Papagena) conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, Mozart's Così fan tutte (Despina), also conducted by Mackerras and Yum-Yum in the audio and video recordings of the Jonathan Miller production of The Mikado from ENO, in which she played the leading soprano role, Yum-Yum.
Garrett's only credit on a hit single was on a version of Ave Maria, which she performed with leukaemia sufferer Amanda Thompson for the television programme Hearts of Gold,[20] which reached no.