Russell Watson, Up Close And Personal, York Barbican, March 6

RUSSELL Watson came very close to singing in York Minster on his candle-lit Christmas tour of British cathedrals this winter.

"We tried to get York but they let us down in the end," says the Salford tenor. "We'd agreed a date, but then they rang back a couple of weeks later saying the date was no longer available.

"It was a shame because I had lovely memories of York Minster from singing there at the Remembrance service for the 4th Mechanized Brigade in 2010. The only bigger church I've sung in is St Paul's in London, where we did the concert acoustically, as we did in York."

Devotees of "The Voice", as Watson is known, have not had too long to wait for a chance to see Britain's best-selling classical artist perform in York. Indeed they can experience Russell him Up Close & Personal on his latest tour, performing an "intimate evening" at York Barbican next Friday.

The idea for the show came indirectly from Luciano Pavarotti.

"I saw a concert that was on Sky Arts about two or three years ago, which was billed as Luciano Pavarotti Live In Barcelona, and I thought. 'this will be good; old Luci with a 60-piece orchestra in Barcelona', but it transpired it was the great man leaning against a piano just singing arias. I thought, 'wow, that's amazing' and the response was incredible, probably greater than when he sang with an orchestra'," recalls Russell.

"So I tried it out myself in a few venues in the last two years as a voice and piano recital to smaller audiences than I normally perform to and it went really well, and better still, I really enjoyed it as I could hear every resonance in my voice and loved performing with just the piano."

The Up Close & Personal show is a variation on that format.

"On this tour, it will be piano, acoustic guitar and a string quartet," he says, adding that the venues are closer to his fans too. "I have a mature audience who can't travel 40 miles at 10.30 at night for big-city shows, so that's why I'm going to places I haven't been before, and the response to these shows has been fantastic, like nothing I've known before."

Mind you, Russell's voice is taking him to faraway places too, or at least taking his voice there.

"I was approached last year by NASA, who were sending a small probe to take pictures of Pluto," he says. "They asked me to do the wake-up call to wake up the probe to start taking pictures, singing Where My Heart Will Take Me, the theme tune from the new series of Star Trek: Enterprise. So officially I'm the voice that has travelled furthest into space, which prompted a couple of tweets saying: 'I can't think of any voice better to be heard so far from Earth'."

Russell, nw 48, has overcome two life-threatening brain tumours and reports himself to be "feeling very good at the moment". "I feel strong," he says. "I don't think people realise it's been more than seven years since my last illness. I've not had to cancel any concert since 2007. After my second operation and radiotherapy, I was wiped out and it took a lot of dedication to rebuild my strength, but I pride myself on having done that. It's only in the last 12 months where I've felt, 'oh my God, I haven't sung like this for 12 years'."

Russell Watson, Up Close And Personal, York Barbican, March 6 at 7.30pm, supported by York soprano Rebecca Newman. Box office: 0844 854 2757 or at yorkbarbican.co.uk