Morag Atchison

Morag is one of New Zealand’s leading young sopranos.  She began her studies at the University of Auckland with the late Beatrice Webster MBE and then went on to postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music, London with Alison Pearce and Antony Saunders.  She is the winner of an ABRSM PG Scholarship and the Madeline Finden Award, a Samling Scholar, the recipient of a Creative NZ grant, finalist in the Kathleen Ferrier Competition and a prize winner in the Royal Over-Seas League’s International Music Competition.

Operatic roles include First Lady, Magic Flute (NBR NZ Opera); Blumenmädchen, Parsifal (NZSO, International Festival of the Arts); Donna Elvira, Don Giovanni with Sir Colin Davis (London Royal Schools’ Opera); Annina, La Traviata (English Touring Opera); La Ciesca, Gianni Schicchi (Aspen Festival, USA); La Feu, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (Limburgs Symphonie Orkest, The Netherlands).

Concert engagements include Beethoven’s concert aria Ah! perfido with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra; Missa Pacifica, Hamilton (world premiére), Carmina Burana, and Haydn’s Nelson Mass (Auckland Choral); a Mozart concert with The Orpheus Choir and Wellington Sinfonia; Handel Arias with AK Barok; Brahms Requiem, Matthew Passion & Easter Oratorio (Bach Musica); Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (London & Aspen); Vivaldi Gloria with Sir David Willcocks (Royal Albert Hall and Venice); Mater Gloriosa in Mahler’s 8th Symphony (RAH); the world premiére of Peter Scholes’s Requiem (Auckland Chamber Orchestra) and on Christmas Day 2005, she was the soloist in The First Communion broadcast live on TV One from Auckland’s Holy Trinity Cathedral.  This year Morag will sing Sandrina in Mozart’s opera La Finta Giardiniera at the Hamilton Gardens Festival for Opera Unleashed, Ah! Perfido with the Manukau City Orchestra, Elijah with Bach Musica, Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man with the Christchurch City Choir and Messiah with Auckland Choral.

Morag teaches voice at the University of Auckland as well as teaching singing in a number of Auckland schools (Westlake Girls' High, St Cuthbert's College, St Kentigern College). She is a vocal tutor for the NZ Youth Choir, NZ Secondary Student’s Choir, Auckland Chamber Choir, has a busy private studio and is a sought-after tutor for vocal and choral workshops around the country. This is Morag’s first performance with Christchurch City Choir.