When Denise Leigh was a teenager, she auditioned for her local amateur dramatics group. They turned her down. “They said that their insurance wouldn't cover a blind person on stage”, she says “but I think they just didn't like the idea of it.” In 2003, she appeared with the English National Opera singing the principal soprano role in a special performance of Verdi's Opera Rigoletto at the Coliseum, London 's largest theatre. Am Dram may have refused her, but the ENO welcomed her with open arms. If you're going to have the last laugh, you don't laugh much louder than that!

Denise Marie Leigh was born with a condition resulting in blindness and grew up in the small Staffordshire village of Audley . Her mother, Maureen, was also blind and her father Dave, a fitter and welder by trade, suffered from arthritis of the spine and was eventually unable to work. Money was scarce, but Denise's parents were determined that she would receive a good education and that they would try to provide for every opportunity available to her, particularly where her first love music was concerned.

From her earliest childhood, Denise has loved music and began to learn the trombone when she was nine (“I've never been a particularly girlie girl”). However, as she wasn't physically big enough for the trombone , she began to learn to play the trumpet then switched to the cornet as “the trumpet is an orchestral instrument and I was very laddish and really wanted to join a brass band”.

Her ongoing collaboration with some of Britain's top brass bands and male voice choirs is a progression of her earliest musical roots, but her career as a soprano didn't begin until the age of sixteen, when she appeared as the narrator in a school production of Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat . It was there that she was talent spotted, awarded a three year sponsorship for musical tuition from Lord Sainsbury's Gatsby Trust and her amazing journey really began.

Denise's dreams finally came true when she was awarded a place at the Royal Northern College of Music to study for a degree in Opera, but just as she was due to start the course she realised that she was pregnant with her first child Becky.

In typical fashion, Denise was determined that being a mother would not stop her from developing as a singer, and so, after a short break while Becky was a baby she returned to her studying with support from the Rotary Club. “Those years were a juggling act” she said, “but I just enjoyed my singing without the drinking and the late nights that the other students were enjoying”. In 1993, Denise finally became an Associate of the Royal College of Music. She went on to have two more children while earning a living through vocal coaching and teaching music theory.

In 2001, a friend suggested that she apply for the English National Opera / Channel 4 reality TV programme Operatunity, which was searching to find for a new young opera star. “I didn't want to enter the competition”, I thought it would be very elitist, I thought I was too old and that I had the wrong background, but he nagged and nagged at me – and thanks goodness he did.”

Winning Operatunity (along with fellow soprano Jane Gilchrist) has made Denise a household name and brought many exciting opportunities with it. Ever since then she has enjoyed a diary packed with concerts, recordings and other professional engagements. She has performed at venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Palace (for members of the royal family, including the Queen) and with orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic, The BBC Concert Orchestra, the London Handel Players, and the RLPO, to mention a few. She has taken part in events as diverse as BBC Proms In The Park, Songs of Praise, Friday Night Is Music Night and in 2004, she reunited with the English National Opera in a special oratorio For The Public Good, in a role written specifically for her.

Her passion for oratorio and early music has also been flourishing, with performances of Handel's Messiah at The St Georges Church in Hanover Square ( Handel's own favourite concert venue), The Mozart Requiem with Harrow Choral Society, Samson in Cambridge with the Brook Ensemble and Choir 2000, Mendelssohn's Elijah, Brahm's German Requiem and Poulenc's Gloria .

Exciting and rewarding experiences have also come from her varied and fascinating charity work. She is a former patron of the local Douglas Macmillan charity and Uniaid, which supports students from low-income backgrounds through university. She is also an honorary ambassador for the RNIB and a cultural ambassador for the 2012 UK Olympic Bid.

To date, Denise has released two albums. The first, Operatunity: The Winners, was a best seller in Britain and Northern Europe, remaining at the number one position in the Core Classical chart for five months. It was nominated for a BRIT award in 2004.

Her second album, Pie Jesu , is her debut solo venture. It was released by EMI Classics in September 2004 and features numbers as diverse as Gershwin's Summertime and Rutter's Pie Jesu.

In 2004 Denise completed a massive thirty three date UK tour, A Night At The Opera, along with Jane Gilchrist and special guests – tenor Alan Oke, baritone Wyn Pen Carreg and the Schomberg String Quartet. She repeated a UK tour at the beginning of 2007, when she took a concert called Mainly Mozart, [just Denise, a baritone, and a piano,] out onto the road.

Her continuing radio appearances are many and varied;

Denise is the current Celebrity Counterpoint champion,

she was the subject of a programme in the series No Triumph No Tragedy, presented on BBC Radio 4 by Peter White,

she still regularly contributes to Radio 4's In Touch, and is in demand as a studio guest throughout the UK, speaking on many aspects of being a musician, being disabled, or just talking for the love of it sometimes.

She was honoured recently to be invited to Channel4 25 years celebrations at the Barbican, where she sang alongside Finalists from Operatunity's sister programme, Musicality,accompanied by Gareth Valentine, and along with judges from both programmes, fielded questions from the audience.

denise has recently started working rehularly with the Galway Choral Society, and early in 2007, visitted Poland with them, and sang in Mozart's Requiem and Vivaldi's Gloria.

A christmas album recorded with the Society is due for release at the end of November 2007.

Denise's diary continues to be busy, with a trip to Dubai scheduled for December 2007, performances in Southern Ireland, and she will, yet again, be appearing in the Battle Proms, in some of the UK's best loved stately homes, including Blenheim Palace and Hatfield House.

Denise started a musical collaboration in January 2006 with the UK National champion Accordionist, Stefan Andrusyschyn, and the pair plan a recording for 2008, of undisclosed repertoire.