Southwest Junior High School choir director Janeal Krehbiel will direct a choir this week in Los Angeles featuring the nation’s top junior-high and middle-school singers.

Krehbiel, co-founder and director of the Lawrence Children’s Choir, was selected to direct the National Junior High Honors Choir. The choir will perform Saturday.

“I have 22 hours of rehearsal with the children in three days,” she said.

The national choir is formed every other year in conjunction with an American Choral Directors Assn. convention.

Krehbiel, who led a choir at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1999, was honored to be director of the National Junior High Honors Choir.

“I was literally in shock,” she said. “This is one of the conducting highlights of my career.”

Krehbiel, notified about the opportunity two years ago, said she didn’t audition or submit her name. She was called and asked to direct the choir. The exposure and attention of the Lawrence Children’s Choir helped provide the opportunity along with conducting all-state choirs in other states, Krehbiel said.

The Lawrence Children’s Choir has been selected to perform at several choir conventions throughout the country, including the Southwest American Choral Directors Assn.’s convention in Little Rock, Ark., last year. The local children’s choir also performed in London in 2003.

Krehbiel noted the association usually selected a college professor or famous composer to direct the choir.

“I think it’s kind of unusual to choose a public school teacher to direct,” Krehbiel said.

To form the choir, children submit an audition tape or CD. Out of about 2,000 tapes, Krehbiel said 200 to 250 children are selected for the choir.

John McGrew, a ninth-grader at Southwest, was selected to be a bass in the honors choir.

In addition to the junior high choir, children’s and senior high choirs also will perform this week. Hannah Foerschler, a sixth-grader at Quail Run School, was selected to be a part of the National Honors Children’s Choir.

As the conductor of the junior high choir, Krehbiel had the opportunity to select which pieces the children would perform. In total, the junior high choir will perform seven pieces.

Music selected includes a 28-page medley by Gilbert and Sullivan, a duo known for its light operas such as “Pirates of Penzance” and “H.M.S. Pinafore.” Krehbiel said this would be the premiere of the Gilbert and Sullivan music arrangement, which was done by her sister, Marilyn Epp.

Krehbiel said the children also would perform a piece called “Can You Hear,” by Jim Papoulis.

“I think it should be a great program,” Krehbiel said.