Mr. C and the Sprague High School Choir

Well, that may be puting it a bit dramatically, but I did take the chance to attend the final Sprague Choir concert of the year a couple weeks ago. Long time choir director, Russ Christensen, is leaving his position after much success and taking a job at OSU. As former students of Mr. C's and as big supporters of Sprague's choir program in general, my sisters and I made a point to attend the spring concert held at Willamette University at the end of May.

I had something of a rocky relationship with high school. I was only there for two year, leaving after tenth grade to get a GED after deciding I was wasting my time. Not the best choice I've ever made. It's one of the pitfalls of being a really smart teenager, often times no one will challenge your judgement even in cases where maybe they really should. At any rate, participating in Concert Choir was one of the highlights of my high school experience. Mr. C was a wonderful teacher and pushed us all to great heights. Sprague has one the Best in the Northwest festival held at the University of Portland every year since I was a sophomore. They contend year after year for first place in the OSAA state championship. Sprague's music program has also been honored by the Grammy awards for excellence in music education more then once in the last 12 years. I'm proud to have been a part of such an elite choir and I'm priveledged to have worked under Mr. C.

While I was at the concert I shot a few videos of the different groups performing. First is a song called "Mack the Knife" performed by Framework, Sprague's elite jazz choir.

Next is a couple videos of the barbershop quartet at Sprague. It's a tradition to have a quartet that started back when I was there, though the name of the group and the participants have rotated over the years. This years iteration was called Shave and a Haircut. I got two of their songs, "In the Jungle" and "Faith", a George Michael cover.

Finally, a number by the biggest and the best, Sprague's world famour Concert Choir. I'm afraid I don't know the name of the song off the top of my head. I had saved a program for reference but it has disappeared in the interveneing time. Still, a beautiful piece of chamber music.

My only disappointment was the lack of a cool Negro Spiritual to bring the house down. My favorites and the biggest crowd pleasers were always the spirituals arranged by Moses Hogan Sprague does on a regular basis. My sophomore year we did "The Battle of Jericho" and Moses Hogan was one of the judges at Best in the Northwest that spring. When our performance was over he came down and workshopped the song with us. It was a real thrill.

Still, we had a great time. At the end of the show my systers and I even went up on stage with all the other alumni to sing the "Old Irish Blessing" as is tradition at the Spring concert. I wish Mr. C good luck at the next level and hopefully Sprague has another great director lined up to continue the tradition of great music at the school.