Sisters High School Chorale takes top honors

The Sisters High School Chorale came home with first place honors from the Central Oregon Music Association Festival on Tuesday, April 8, at Summit High School, in Bend. The win earns the group a berth at the state competition on Friday, May 2.

Sixteen schools from as far south as Lakeview and as far east as Burns, including all Bend schools, Redmond and Madras, participated in the competition.

"It's a friendly competition in the sense that there are schools from all ranges from 2A to 6A," said choir director Tara MacSween. "It's not just the same level of schools competing together."

According to sophomore Stephanie Cole, winning the festival is especially important because Sisters competed against schools much larger than itself.

"To beat such huge schools is amazing," she said.

This year is the third time that Sisters singers have attained state-qualifying scores in the five years MacSween has been with the district.

"It's the first time they've won. It's a really big honor to win, to get top scores, at the Central Oregon Festival. That's a shocker. That was beyond my hopes for any choir," said MacSween.

The honor is also beyond anything Sisters students anticipated.

"The kids were blown away when they got the news," said MacSween. "You do your best, and you hope for the best results. It was way beyond any honor that we were hoping for."

The Chorale performed for a panel of adjudicators.

"Each adjudicator ranks them on a variety of things, including their presentation. Then, one of the judges comes up and works with the students for 10 or 15 minutes after their performance is over," said MacSween.

The students performed four works: Aaron Copland's "The Boatman's Dance;" a technically challenging arrangement of Jeffery H. Rickard's "Gloria;" de Palestrina's "O Bone Jesu;" and a spirited arrangement of "Keep Your Lamps!"

MacSween told The Nugget that coming with really good literature is an important factor.

"But, at the same time, a lot of groups come with really, really good literature. That's kind of where the bar is," she said.

Both MacSween and the students attribute their success to the fact that before their performance they talked about not allowing their nerves to get in the way of their performance.

"We didn't hold anything back," MacSween said. "The students were brave enough to show the judges what they could do from the get go. It's not easy to take the risk of performing your hardest and your best, pushing yourself to the limits in a nerve racking situation like that when you are being judged."

Sophomore Austin Erlandson summed up why he feels this year's Chorale has been so successful. He attributes the group's success to director MacSween: "She is so enthusiastic and loving of everybody here and really teaches us something. At the beginning of the year, we were doing a lot of sight reading, not even singing, just learning what music is about, learning notes, rhythms, all that kind of stuff," he said.