Taylor Swift might be the most-streamed artist in the world, but narrow the focus to classical choral groups and the London-based eight-voice ensemble Voces8 reigns supreme. The choir will make the trek all the way to Traverse City next Tuesday evening for a concert at Mission Hill Church – a special occasion not just for the local classical music scene, but also because one of the Voces8 members has Michigan roots and TC ties.

Founded in 2005 by a pair of former Westminster Abbey choristers, Voces8 is a Grammy-nominated a cappella octet that boasts hundreds of thousands of monthly listeners on Spotify, a repertoire spanning from the renaissance to contemporary jazz and pop, and an acclaimed recorded output with Decca Records. The group also tours worldwide.

For Michigan native Blake Morgan, who sings tenor in Voces8, getting a Traverse City date on the schedule has been on the bucket list for as long as he’s been in the ensemble. Though he’s now the group’s second longest-serving member, Morgan broke precedent when he joined in 2016, becoming the British choir’s first American singer.

Morgan grew up in Livonia and earned dual degrees in music performance and music education at Western Michigan University. He credits the “cross training” he received at Western – in both the classical voice program and the school’s world-renowned Gold Company vocal jazz groups – for giving him the versatility to build a career in a field where paid full-time jobs are few. Straight out of college, Morgan landed contracts with esteemed choirs like the Trinity Wall Street Choir in New York City and the Grammy-winning Conspirare in Austin, Texas. Then came a stint at the Minneapolis-based men’s choir Cantus, followed by a job with Chanticleer, a famed male choir in San Francisco.

“Chanticleer was a dream job for me, and I was totally happy to think of the next 10 years of my life being spent in that ensemble,” Morgan says, calling the choir “probably the most famous choral group in the States.” After only a year, though, an unexpected opportunity came calling.

“Voces8 was a pretty young group at the time, but it turned out they’d been scouting me, and it felt like an amazing opportunity to be based internationally and have a profile that was mostly international touring rather than just in one country,” Morgan tells The Ticker, noting that Chanticleer and the other choirs he sang with mostly stick to North American tours.

While Voces8 didn’t have a “Brits only” rule, Morgan says the difference in culture overseas when it comes to choral singing meant he was joining a group of singers who, despite only being a little older than him, had years or decades more experience.

“A lot of the people in Voces8 at the time had a choral upbringing,” he explains. “Many of them sang treble at Westminster Abbey when they were 6-8 years old, so they were already sight-reading professionally and making money from singing when I was learning how to read Harry Potter. They definitely took a little bit of a risk on me. But at the time, I think they also really wanted to expand their jazz repertoire, and I had that background. And they were also interested in exploring more of the American choral repertoire that I had grown up with.”

Morgan’s taken the task of bringing a more American sensibility to Voces8 seriously, and not just in terms of music. When the group visits the U.S. – and particularly Michigan – Morgan makes a point of taking his fellow members to his favorite locales. For years, he’s yearned to show off Traverse City in particular – a place that, though he never lived here, means a lot to him.

“Almost every single summer, my family came up to Traverse City to camp in that area,” Morgan says. Later, in high school, he spent a summer in the choral program at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp and struck up a lasting friendship with a Traverse Citian.

“After that, I was up here four or five times every year, hanging out, meeting people, getting to know the area,” he says. “And now, for all 10 seasons I’ve been in Voces8, I’ve been telling people in the group, ‘Oh, you have to check out this brewery in northern Michigan, Short’s.’ I’ve never been able to sneak any beers over to England in my suitcase, so hopefully we can find some time to get out there.”

A visit to Short’s will have to be wedged into a busy schedule that includes not just the 7:30pm concert on Tuesday, but also a morning workshop session with four local high school choirs. Educational outreach is a major component of Voces8’s charitable foundation, and Russ Larimer – the choral director at Mission Hill Church and former choir teacher at Traverse City West Senior High – wanted to prioritize learning when he booked the choir.

“I can't get the teacher blood out of me, and when one of the top vocal groups in the world is in town, if you can get kids the opportunity to work with them, there's nothing better,” Larimer says. “We’ll have at least an hour and a half with [Voces8], and we've got ensembles from Central High School, West, St. Francis, and Interlochen Arts Academy all bussing in to get some in-person time with them.”

Tami Williams, who leads the choral program at Central High, says she and her students have been looking forward to Voces8 for months.

“This will be a pivotal and memorable experience,” Williams says. “Voces8 is an esteemed ensemble that we consistently use as a model for our students when listening to recordings of quality, historical vocal literature. And now we get to work with them in a live, educational, and personal setting.”