On May 20, 2008, the Eau Gallie High School Combined Choir (Concert Choir, Women’s Choir, Encore, and Finale) performed one last show together — the EGHS 2008 Spring Choir. Their instructor and mentor, Mr. E. Jason Armstrong, announced earlier this year that this would be his last year in the Brevard County school system (after 14 years of service in the music program).

His students (and some returning alumni) put together quite a show for us to enjoy, and gave him a fantastic (and entertaining) sendoff. To watch the whole thing online in one shot, view my YouTube playlist for the event. Here’s the program and links to individual songs/scenes (note: if you’ve got the bandwidth, set your YouTube preferences to “High Quality” to get better versions of all these):

1. The entire Combined Choir opens the show with Duel of the Fates.
2. The Encore Show Choir performs C’mon Everybody.
3. Finale singer Laura Diebel performs Hymn.
4. The Encore Women’s Choir performs The New Girl in Town.
5. The Women’s Show Choir performs California Dreamin’.
6. Encore singer (and my buddy) Shannon Biagi performs What I Did For Love.
7. The Women’s Show Choir performs More Today Than Yesterday.
8. Finale singer Olivia Frost performs My Almost Lover.
9. The Men’s Show Choir performs Two Too Wet!, a medley.
10. The Finale Show Choir performs Thanks a Lot, But No Thanks.
11. The Encore Show Choir performs The Song of Purple Summer.
12. Alumni Mallory Gleason performs Why.
13. The Concert Choir performs There Once Was a Man.
14. The Concert Choir performs To Where You Are.
15. The entire Combined Choir closes the “formal” show with You Can’t Stop the Beat and takes their final bow together with their instructor.
16. EGHS Alumni return to perform I Will Be Here.
17. The entire group offers Mr. Armstrong some parting gifts.
18. Finally, a bit of a Tricky stunt as Mr. Armstrong and his Choir close out the show.
19. After the show, students get a closer look at the collage presented to Mr. Armstrong.

Enjoy the show!

Saturday night I got to sit in on a performance by the Eau Gallie High School folks of the Broadway play Beauty and the Beast. Most of the leads (especially the Beast and Gaston) were great and the ensemble was fantastic. The dance numbers were astoundingly good (I have no clue how the cast kept all those steps in their heads, or how the choreographer(s) put all that together ), the band’s music was great, and the sets were impressive.

It was pretty easy to forget we were watching a performance by a high school cast and crew — apart from a lackluster Belle and some minor problems with two wireless mics (apparently a flap of fabric on two of the costumes cover up the little mics, but fortunately the two actors with the problem had strong enough voices that they projected just fine without the mics), this is the caliber of show you could expect to see on Broadway. The $10-per-seat ticket price was a steal for this

My congratulations to the cast and crew! My buddy Shannon snapped some shots backstage with my camera (hehehe — nobody said the cast couldn’t snap a few pictures behind the scenes!); they’re available right here, or right here on a separate page in case the “embedded” version goofs up. Standard procedure for both: click the thumbnails for bigger versions; a little magnifying glass w/plus sign icon in the bottom-right corner zooms in even more.

I’ve recorded a few things here and there and uploaded them to YouTube (let them handle the bandwidth requirements so I don’t have to ). For now, there’s only a few things there, but I’ll update this page (and my YouTube collection) as the pile of videography grows.

• The EGHS Spring 2008 Spring Concert
• Space Shuttle Discovery launch on October 23, 2007
• The EGHS Fall 2007 Talent Show
• Space Shuttle Endeavor launch on March 11, 2008 (a night shot — amazing fireworks!)