Staunton teen composes 22-song musical about the Persian Wars, earns national recognition

https://www.newsleader.com/story/news/2019/07/29/staunton-teen-composes-22-song-musical-persian-wars-earns-national-recognition/ [login to see] /
Sophia Schwaner was eating mashed potatoes last fall when the idea struck her: she would write a musical.
The Stuart Hall sophomore's decision was a random one, she said. She'd always loved music but never written a song, other than a few she and her siblings composed as kids.
Less than a year after this starch-fueled inspiration, Schwaner has written a musical production inspired by the Persian Wars with 22 songs, one of which earned her a spot in a prestigious national songwriting competition. She also attended an intensive composition camp in Boston earlier this month with the help of community fundraising and a Community Foundation of the Central Blue Ridge scholarship.

The ultimate goal of my musical is just to show how cool history can be, and also how ... we can learn from history," Schwaner said. "And to make history more accessible to people and fun to people who normally wouldn't love history."