Every year a myriad of high school kids around the country audition for the American Choral Director’s Association (ACDA) National Choir. Of these kids, only 40 students get chosen. This year Cherry Hill East’s Hannah Kim (’15) was one of the 40 students to be selected for this prestigious opportunity.

On Feb. 24, Kim will be traveling to Salt Lake City, Utah where she will stay to practice with the entire choir. She will be working with a director for the first few days with a song that she has already practiced at home. Finally, she will perform in a concert on Feb. 28.

“We just learn the notes on our own at home and then when we go there we practice working with [the director] and singing with [the director] as well,” said Kim.

For the audition process, Kim submitted a video of her singing an excerpt of the song “Hallelujah” by Beethoven with three other people in September. By the end of fall, Kim found out that she had gotten into the ACDA national choir.

As tough as this process may sound, Kim thought differently.

“The audition process was very easy this year,” she said.

Kim had initially heard about the national choir after listening to students who got accepted last year talking about their experiences.

“I actually overheard [the upperclassmen] talking about their experience and I thought that it would be very unique,” said Kim. “Not only are you performing, but you get to hear other choirs perform them as well.”

At the conference, several other choirs will be attending, some of which are very famous. For example, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, a Grammy winning, 360 person choir, will perform. Kim said performing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is what excites her most.

Kim, who plans on studying music education in college, started singing in middle school, but did not seriously think of pursuing music until her sophomore year in high school when she began to audition for All South Jersey Chorus and All State Chorus.

“I only sang it just for fun in previous years but it wasn’t until sophomore year… I started getting really interested,” said Kim.