Lesley Garrett first came to fame singing Handel at Wexford, and the opening Alleluja from Mozart's Exultate, jubilate showed her strengths - a clear, warm voice, fluent if not especially firm coloratura, and a good sense of rhythm and phrasing. The voice is not particularly large, but it carried well in the Waterfront Hall, allowing for the projection of subtle shades of expression, in two of Canteloube's Songs of the Auvergne. Two baroque songs by (or attributed to) Giordano and Pergolesi were fetchingly done, as was Una voce poco fa, sung in English but deftly and imaginatively ornamented. In three songs by Strauss, Standchen, Morgen and Zueignung, pianist Philip Thomas demonstrated delicacy of touch, but one kept wanting a fuller tone from the singer. But things were least satisfactory in the concluding group of Coward, Gershwin, Rodgers and Leigh, into which two cabaret songs by Britten - Funeral Blues and Calypso - segued neatly. This may seem odd, considering Lesley Garrett's success as a cross-over artist, but the style is just a tad Julie Andrews, and the lack of body in the lower register made the words hard to make out.

Quibbles apart, few artists approach Garrett's ability to communicate with an audience and provide an experience not replicable by records - or TV shows, for that matter.