Linda Ormiston has been a professional singer for nearly 40 years. She has sung all over the world from Canada to Japan and in Europe with opera companies in Monte Carlo, Brussels, Frankfurt, Lausanne and Lyon. She has performed, twice, at the prestigious Salzburg Festival in Austria. In the UK, Linda has sung with Scottish Opera, Opera North, English National Opera and, most recently, with Welsh National Opera, in their acclaimed new production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin.
Linda still lectures and takes Masterclasses on vocal and performance technique at various universities around the country
She is equally at home in a lighter vein and has performed at all the major festivals. These include Belfast, Buxton, Covent Garden, Glyndebourne and Wexford. She also did a record 7 successive years, in late night cabaret at the Edinburgh International Festival.
Linda Ormiston has always maintained that she has a good face for radio but she has made a number of interesting appearances on television. In the ITV series Highway, Linda appeared with the late Sir Harry Secombe. She also made an appearance in the BBC hit series, Hamish Macbeth with Robert Carlyle. Linda was a regular broadcaster for BBC Radio 3 and in 2004, presented a series of seven concerts. These were broadcast from the St. Magnus Festival in Orkney.
For the last twenty years, Linda has been entertaining audiences with her after-dinner speaking as much as with her stunning operatic singing. As with her singing, the feedback from her speaking engagements has been tremendous.
Linda Ormiston’s speaking career started unobtrusively in 1994, when she won first prize in the competitive ‘Wag’s Dinner’ in Aberdeen. Since then, in between singing engagements, she has been ‘let out’, from time to time, to entertain at various functions. These range from international conferences and dinners for the likes of IBM to local engagements at rotary and golf clubs. She also speaks at charity fundraising gala dinners and hosts orchestral concerts.
The beginning of any year is always busy for Linda Ormiston. Scots and non-Scots attend Burns Suppers all over Scotland and the world and Linda is much in demand for her ‘Reply to the Toast to the Lassies’. She is also asked to give a ‘Toast to the Laddies’, which she has done all over the UK. Linda has actually performed this at one of the largest Burns Suppers in the world, hosted by the London branches of the Scottish Banks. This event is normally held annually at Grosvenor House in Park Lane, London.
In 2001, Linda Ormiston was awarded the OBE for her services to Opera.