Getting into the groove

Morag Atchison swings from choral work to a tango-based mass that might get her dancing.

- RICHARD BETTS

I've seen Morag Atchison at work many times: as an opera singer in Elektra and The Magic Flute and stealing the show as Berta in a brilliant, bonkers production of The Barber of Seville; as a chorister with Voices NZ, the national chamber choir. She's recently back from a two-week European tour with the choir taking in Sweden, Germany, England and France - where the group sang at Notre-Dame Cathedral. But in some ways I was most fascinated watching her work in 2019 at an Auckland Choral rehearsal, where she is vocal tutor. She acted almost as a translator for conductor Uwe Grodd, giving the accomplished but mostly amateur singers the technical knowhow to produce the sound Grodd wanted. Who knew that to get a consistent humming sound involves holding the tongue at the front of the mouth, as if you're about to say