Internationally acclaimed composer René Clausen will serve as guest clinician at the 2015 Meistersinger Honor Choir Festival at Wartburg College Jan. 30-31. More than 400 select high-school singers from throughout the Midwest will attend.

A finale concert, Saturday, 7:30 p.m., in Neumann Auditorium, will feature a choir of festival participants and Wartburg Choir members, the Rosemount (Minnesota) High School Concert Choir and Wartburg choral ensembles. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for K-12 students and can be purchased at wartburg.edu/fest or by calling the Wartburg Ticket Office at 319-352-8691.

Clausen’s compositions will be the centerpiece of the concert. The Wilton native's recording, “Life & Breath: Choral Works by René Clausen,” won three Grammy Awards in 2013. Clausen conducts The Concordia Choir and teaches choral conducting at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota.

Lee Nelson, festival choir conductor and Wartburg's director of choral activities, and Nicki Bakko Toliver, assistant professor in choral music education, studied under Clausen at Concordia.

“Dr. Clausen has been a very important mentor for Dr. Toliver and me,” said Nelson. “His compositions contain a very deep spirituality that speaks directly to the hearts and minds of performers and audience members alike. It will be a wonderful educational opportunity for our Wartburg students, as well as the high school students, to learn from and be conducted by this choral icon.”

World-renowned composer Morten Lauridsen was the artist-in-residence at the 2014 festival.