Wrangell High School senior Clara Edens is having a capstone season with the choir. After being selected as first chair, second soprano for the Southeast Honor Music Festival, she will continue making her voice heard at the 2025 All-State Music Festival this weekend.

Edens was notified by Wrangell music director Tasha Morse that she had been selected for the statewide honor.

She was chosen from among 446 applicants, from 46 schools across the state.

“The music at state is at a higher degree of difficulty, and with a much larger group,” Edens said. “It’s always a fantastic experience to sing in a choir.”

She had practiced the audition music for the Southeast Honor Festival since her sophomore year. This year’s regional band and choir festival was held in Wrangell last month.

To qualify for state, however, Edens was given an additional piece of music in August, which had to be sung in a “live audition” — applicants have just that one performance to impress the selection committee.

She noted that the larger regional and state choirs are an opportunity for collaboration and volume. “I think it’s great that a large group of people who are just as enthusiastic as I am about music can get together and make music.”

The festival will be held Thursday through Saturday, Nov. 20-22, in Anchorage, with the gala performance concert on Saturday at East High School, directed by guest conductor Roger Titian David Jr., music coordinator at Edgewood United Church in East Lansing, Michigan. David is starting the doctorate program in choral conducting at Michigan State University.