Wright City Middle School student Thomas Trollope won a prize in the 2016 Creating Original Music Project competition conducted by the University of Missouri’s Mizzou New Music Initiative.He was the first-place winner in the middle school-popular category for his song “Giants.”Trollope’s winning composition was performed at the annual COMP Festival held April 16 in the Fine Arts Building on the Mizzou campus. He was sponsored by Todd Oberlin.COMP was founded in 2005 to encourage K-12 students in Missouri to write original musical works and to provide performance opportunities for those works. It is a joint venture of the university’s Mizzou New Music Initiative and the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation, which provides an annual gift of $80,000 to sponsor the competition.Every year, in addition to having their music performed at the COMP Festival, the winning composers and their schools receive cash prizes, and high school winners also receive a scholarship to attend Mizzou’s high school summer music composition camp.“The Mizzou New Music Initiative is all about helping young composers grow and develop, from elementary school all the way through post-graduate studies,” said Jeanne Sinquefield of the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation. “The Creating Original Music Project competition and summer camp are the first steps in that process, and we’re delighted that over the last 11 years, we’ve been able to provide opportunities and encouragement for hundreds of Missouri’s youngest composers through those programs.”Music