Leroy Vickers, 27, is a tenor who sings in many styles, from rock ‘n’ roll to Italian opera.

Leroy, from Hull, spent most of last year working in Italy, Germany, Cyprus and Crete.

He performed Nessun Dorma to 800 people at City Hall in his native Hull and in November sang to more than 2,000 people at Doncaster’s Christmas lights switch-on.

His candid website reveals he had an unsettled home life and was bullied as a child. He developed a love for Shakespeare when he studied Macbeth and Romeo & Juliet. This prompted him to explore opera and the classics.

At the same time he developed a love of sport, with Michael Jordan as a role-model throughout his early teens. Leroy says his dedication to basketball at this age prepared him for the rigours of vocal training and the discipline he would later need to perfect and protect his singing voice.

When he was 16 he was in a boy band and “regularly performed around Hull to audiences of over 4,000”, according to his website.

Aged 18, he formed a four-piece male harmony group, performing at various venues and entering talent contests around the UK.

Leroy put his career on hold to care for his mum until she died of cancer in 2004. He was devastated by her death and it took a while to get back on track. Luckily he met his wife Caroline, a singer and dancer, who encouraged him to sing again, in particular opera and musical theatre.

In 2006 he joined a classical pop quartet who were seen on Classic FM TV and won Blackpool’s Talk of the Coast talent competition in 2008.

After his hero Luciano Pavarotti died in 2007, Leroy worked with John Mackfall on a tribute song, partly in Italian.