Audio from the 2018 COMP Festival will stream live online on Saturday, April 21
The Mizzou New Music Initiative will showcase Missouri’s best young composers when the winning works from this year’s Creating Original Music Project (COMP) competition are performed at the 13th annual COMP Festival, held from 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Saturday, April 21 in the Fine Arts Building on the campus of the University of Missouri.
Admission is free and open to the public. The junior division concert, featuring works from elementary and middle school winners, begins at 10:30 a.m., with the senior division concert of music by high school winners following at 2:30 p.m.
The festival also will be streamed live online at https://music.missouri.edu/concert-audio-streaming, with the audio stream going live 10 minutes before the start of each concert.
COMP was founded in 2005 to encourage K-12 students in Missouri to write original music and to provide performance opportunities for those works. It is a joint venture of the University of Missouri’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 in each age group and category and their schools receive cash prizes. High school winners also receive scholarships to attend the Missouri Summer Composition Institute, Mizzou’s high school summer music composition camp.
“The Mizzou New Music Initiative was created to find and grow composers and make Missouri a mecca for musical composition, and the Creating Original Music Project competition and summer camp were the cornerstones,” said Jeanne Sinquefield of the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation. “Since 2005, more than 200 young Missouri composers have won the K-12 composer competition. Although the Initiative has grown significantly since it began, seeing these young composers develop and respond to the support and encouragement that they get from COMP never gets old.”
The 2018 Creating Original Music Project (COMP) competition categories and winners are:
Elementary School – Song with Words
1) Lucy Gray Hamilton of Eugene Field Elementary, St. Joseph, for “This Old House.” Sponsor: Janell Becerra
2) Finley John Watkins of Bernie Elementary School, Bernie, for “Legend in Me.” Sponsor: Cecilia Lanpher
3) Landon Hall and Brody Oesch of Thomas W. Kelley Elementary, Benton, for “Winter Lights.” Sponsor: Heather DiStefano
Elementary School – Instrumental
1) Yueheng Wang of Ulysses S. Grant Elementary School, Columbia, for “Dancing Waves.” Sponsor: Pamela Sisson.
2) Olivia Bresler of Rogers Elementary School, St. Louis, for “Up in the Sky.” Sponsor: Donna Buehne.
3) Ian Moore of Rogers Elementary School, St. Louis, for “In the King’s Court.” Sponsor: Donna Buehne.
Middle School – Fine Art
1) Christopher Ramsey of The Barstow School, Kansas City, for “Tarantella.” Sponsor: Bruce Dickerson.
2) Brandon Kim of Jefferson Middle School, Columbia, for “The Dreamer.” Sponsor: Jaime Canepa.
3) Charlotte Bauer of The Summit Preparatory School of Southwest Missouri, Springfield, for “Playing With Time.” Sponsor: Shawn Keech.
Middle School – Popular
1) Jordin Mackenzie of The Barstow School, Kansas City, for “Comingbacktoyou.” Sponsor: Bruce Dickerson.
2) Stone Gill of Arcadia Valley Middle School, Ironton, for “Brave.” Sponsor: Charles Lee.
3) Posey Bischoff of Hixson Middle School, Webster Groves, for “About to Grow.” Sponsor: Joe Stevison.
High School – Fine Art
1) Jack Snelling of Webster Groves High School, Webster Groves, for “Napoleonic Dances in F Minor.” Sponsor: Kevin Cole.
2) Olivia Bennett, a home-schooled student from Nixa, for “Nefarious.” Sponsor: Carlyle Sharpe.
3) Brandon Thibodeau of Kearney High School, Kearney, for “Silence.” Sponsor: Chris Heil.
High School – Popular
1) Christian Geil, a home-schooled student from Grandview, for “The Cold Will Come.” Sponsor: Christopher Geil.
2) Katherine Vlamis of Liberty High School, Liberty, for “We Won’t Fall.” Sponsor: Baker Purdon
3) Victoria Raulston of Clever High School, Clever, for “Devour.” Sponsor: Alex Nelson
High School – Jazz
1) Samuel Luetkemeyer of Calvary Lutheran High School, Jefferson City, for “Sibling Rivalry.” Sponsors: Melisa Ahlers.
2) Robyne Sieh of Ft. Zumwalt North High School, O’Fallon, for “The Interview.” Sponsor: Allison Houghton
3) William E. Cremer III of Crawford County R-II High School, Cuba, for “The Overcomer.” Sponsor: Shannon Moore
Each student who enters the competition must have the signature and sponsorship of his or her school’s music teacher. Community agencies, churches, after-school programs, private teachers, and other musical mentors also may sponsor their young musicians in partnership with the student’s school music teacher.