Elise Eskew Sparks

DHS Chorus

Elise Eskew Sparks has been the Choral Director at Decatur High School since 2012. For some of these years, she concurrently served as the Director of Choral Activities at Agnes Scott College (2008-2019). Under her leadership, the Collegiate Chorale performed at the GMEA In-Service Conference in Savannah in 2011 and at Spivey Hall in 2014 and 2018. Elise has grown the choral program at Decatur High School from 35 to over 180 in nine years, leading the state in All State Reading Chorus participants and All State Chorus participants from a non-performing arts high school. In the spring of 2015, Decatur High chorus students performed in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin while on a tour of Ireland.

Elise holds a Ph.D. in Music Education from Georgia State University, received a Master of Sacred Music in choral conducting from Emory University in 2005, and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1996). Prior to relocating to Atlanta in 2003, Elise taught high school choral music for 7 years in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Elise served as a church music director for over 15 years. A mezzo-soprano, Elise sang nine summers in the Oregon Bach Festival Chorus under the direction of Helmuth Rilling and Matthew Halls. She has sung in Carnegie Hall workshops under Ton Koopman and Helmuth Rilling and has sung with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus and Chamber Chorus. Elise currently sings in the Atlanta-based semi-professional group Coro Vocati. Elise and husband, Steve, are parents to 11-year-old twins, Meredith and Fisher.