The Sprague Camerata Orchestra was struggling to survive. After being under the direction of Mr. Nelson for so long, the students had a hard time accepting any other ideas or ways of teaching. As a freshman, I never really understood this, and now feel terrible for the things that the Sprague Camerata imposed upon the new director. Ultimately, the new director of the year 06-07 was forced to resign at the end of the semester. This is something that I truly regret, but it happened (due to many malicious letters and groups of students/parents). We then began a conductor-hot-potato if you will. By the end of the year we had had 3 directors. The next year (07-08) the Sprague Camerata welcomed a new conductor from the Oregon Symphony. Unfortunately, this conductor also left at the end of the year. At this point, the Sprague Camerata has switched many different conductors and (although we still sounded good) had never been able to corral a 1st place back to Sprague.
All of this changed this year. Sprague Camerata 08-09.
We finally met a stable conductor who is here to stay (hopefully). Last year, the orchestra lost a significant amount of seniors to a point that many people did not believe that we would ever sound as good again. Well, it happened. The group came together and gave one of the best performances I've ever been apart of. It was an amazing feeling to finally climb back to the top and to get a (my first) state championship at the OSAA Orchestra State Championships at OSU. More than the first place, I really just appreciate the amazing connection that the Camerata has. It's a lot of fun to make music with all of my good friends.
P.S. I made it in the paper. Except I look kind of scary? I don't know. Concentration, maybe?
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