Violinist arranges concert to honor Sandy Hook victims
NEWTOWN — It took another small town being torn apart by a senseless mass shooting of kids in Texas in May for Philip Kates to realize how little has changed from 10 years ago, when 26 first graders and educators were slain at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Kates, a composer and violinist with the Philadelphia Orchestra who started lessons when he was 3 also believes that music has an inherent beauty, and that listening to music reminds us that there is beauty in the world.
His realization that nothing has changed but the world is still a beautiful place is why he pressed his idea and eventually prevailed to arrange a concert in Newtown two days before the 10 year mark of the Sandy Hook shooting to “offer some comfort” to the people here.
“The idea came to me over a period of weeks after the shooting in Uvalde (Texas) and it reignited the continuing awareness of the situation in our country with mass shootings,” Kates said on Thursday. “I was thinking about it every day after that, and as the weeks went by, I started the getting the idea of music to offer some comfort.”
“Music doesn’t solve our problems,” Kates said. “But it can soothe our souls.”
The concert, a string quartet featuring the works of Schubert and Charles Ives, is free and open to the public, starting at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 12 at St. Rose of Lima Church in Newtown.
How did the concert end up at the church?
“He emailed me, saying it’s been on his mind for some time to come and do something as a gift for the community here,” said Monsignor Robert Weiss, the pastor of St. Rose. “Music does lift the soul.”
In the same way, a Colchester photographer has a similar belief about the transformative power of his art to find beauty and light on the darkest day of Newtown’s calendar.
Robert Carley, a photographer who spent weeks documenting the makeshift memorials and outpourings of love in Newtown following the 2012 shooting, has recently added to his collection with images from a family of loss’ benefit event, and is exhibiting his work in the state capitol this month.
The exhibit, “Remembering the Newtown School Shooting Ten Years Ago, Photos of Hope: Makeshift Memorials
and Tributes,” is on display in the Connecticut State Capitol in Hartford during work hours on weekdays through Dec. 30.
“I had an exhibit of makeshift memorials and posters and signs for the first anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting and now I have one for the 10th anniversary, with some new photos from the Vicki Soto 5K Race,” Carley said on Thursday. “It’s about how communities come together and deal with grief by everyday people showing their love.”
Carley said he was “amazed” in the early days after the Sandy Hook shooting to see “the heartfelt creation and creativity of people who turned to angels, stars and doves to show their concern and to support the victims.”
In Newtown, the Dec. 12 concert will be joined by the St. Rose Adult Choir for two pieces, including Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus.”
Two days after the concert on the anniversary of the shooting St. Rose will host its annual Sandy Hook Memorial Mass at 7:30 p.m. The Newtown Interfaith Council will hold its annual anniversary service at Trinity Episcopal Church at 7 p.m.