Sisters High School hosts vocal festival

The auditorium at Sisters High School rang with some of the best young voices in Central Oregon performing in a vocal festival on Tuesday, April 12.

Seven Central Oregon schools participated in the event including Burns, Madras, Bend, Summit, Mt. View, Crook County and Sisters.

The annual event rotates to different schools each year. Choir director Tara MacSween said, “This year it was fun for us to share our nice new auditorium.”

The event always happens toward the end of the school year when groups have had a chance to perfect their music.

Although the event is adjudicated, the real purpose is for singers in the region to get together and share their music.

Sisters started the festival with their 8:30 a.m. performance. MacSween admitted the choir didn’t feel they performed very well.

“It’s a little rough to shake the sleep off,” said MacSween. “It wasn’t our best performance but we did all right. We weren’t as fired up as we could have been and performing that early is always difficult.”

But when the scores came in the choir was pleasantly surprised.

“Our scores were very good,” said Tara. “I was shocked.”

At the conclusion of the choir’s performance one of the judges spoke with the choir.

“That’s the best thing,” said MacSween. “When you’re done performing one of the judges, who’s a seasoned musician and an expert in his field, comes up and gives feedback on your performance and then works with the choir for about 15 minutes. Their advice is just golden.”

MacSween said that the judges were excellent: Jim Knox, director of choral activities at COCC and Dr. Clark, retired director at University of Oregon.