Alaska Children’s Choir has new homegrown director

WASILLA — The last time Jessie Eddings was involved in Alaska Children’s Choir, she was an 18-year-old soloist.

Now, she owns and directs the entire organization.

Eddings knows she has big shoes to fill — when 35-year director Janet Stotts died of cancer in May, many current and former Alaska Children’s Choir (ACC) members memorialized the woman on Facebook and at Relay for Life of Mat-Su the following month. Eddings, too, was influenced by Stotts during her 13 own years with ACC. Upon joining the choir, she “already had a love for music,” she said, but Stotts focused that love and cultivated Eddings’ purpose and passion for singing.

“She knew how to accomplish her musical goals, no matter what,” Eddings said, of Stotts. Whatever the director worked on “was always a polished product.”

Eddings left the choir when she turned 18 — the maximum age for ACC students — and graduated from high school in 2006. She obtained a Bachelor of Music Education from Wartburg College in Iowa in 2010, and a Master of Music from Mercer University in Georgia in 2012 before returning to Alaska.

This past March, Eddings directed the Mat-Su community production of Handel’s “Messiah,” which she had been a part of as a student in the past. She currently teaches string orchestra at Birchtree Charter School and maintains a private studio in Palmer for string, piano and voice students.

Marg Kruse, who represented the sale of the choir at Gene Stotts’ request, said she led a national search “for a trained, passionate individual capable and prepared to make a career of the Alaska Children’s Choir.” Joining Kruse in the search was former ACC accompanist Marcia Stratman, ACC co-founder Michael More, Sacred Heart Catholic Church choir director Joyce Lund, and Cantora Arctica women’s choir board president Hedwig Faber.

“The ‘search committee’ was unanimous in deciding Jessie had the right training, passion and commitment to make a future of the ACC,” Kruse wrote in an email.

Twelve-year-old Madison Milwicz, who has been involved with the choir since she was a toddler, said she worked with Eddings for last year’s final concert, which took place shortly after Stotts’ death. The new director has already made an impression on the young student.

“She’s a really fun director and I love the music that she picked out (for this season),” Madison said. “She’s really patient and I love her already.

Madison said she’s sung many gospel and foreign language songs with ACC, and while Eddings is continuing that tradition, she also is introducing some jazz pieces.

Eddings said she is making an effort to make the choir her own while honoring Stotts’ legacy.

“I’m excited and humbled to be able to fill that role and be trusted by even the small numbers we have right now,” she said.

Auditions for the choir have already been held, she said, but with fewer students than usual, singers from age 5 to 18 are encouraged to contact Eddings via email or by phone as soon as possible for a second round of auditions to be held.

“Almost anybody can do something really well,” with training and dedication, she said, so inexperienced singers need not be afraid to try out.

Eddings said she intends to “keep the basic purpose and structure” of the choir the same, and hold her students to the same high standards that were held by Stotts.

“It’ll be a very challenging year but hopefully we’ll come out of it singing beautiful music and showing the community that we’re still strong,” she said.

For more information, visit http://alaskachildrenscho.wix.com/alaskachildrenschoir, or contact Eddings at 982-5467 or alaskachildrenschoir@yahoo.com.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.

This story has been corrected from its original version, which said Eddings went to Palmer High. She was homeschooled.