April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
CLASSICAL CONCERT
St. Isaac Jogues' story inspires local musician
Written for a dance group, "The Discovery of Isaac Jogues" considers the French Jesuit missionary's discoveries of Huron tribal culture and Lake George, as well as his evolution to being martyred in the mid-1600s.
The idea came to Mr. Newell about two years ago after he stumbled across a statue of St. Isaac at Sacred Heart parish in Lake George, where Mr. Newell's parents work.
"I thought, 'Now, there's a story,'" Mr. Newell said. "You get called in certain directions and you just have to follow things that are presented to you."
Around the same time, he read a 1999 document by Blessed Pope John Paul II, encouraging artists to search for "new epiphanies" and inspire audiences to contemplate God.
Mr. Newell, a parishioner of the Roman Catholic Community of Hudson Falls/Kingsbury, responded by composing the Jogues piece - and also opened the Hudson River Music Hall in Hudson Falls, a non-profit arts center he believes will "revive the economy of this little village.
"All these things happened at the same time," he told The Evangelist. "It was amazing."
A teacher at the Diller-Quaile School of Music in Manhattan and SUNY Adirondack in Queensbury, Mr. Newell also performs in a rock cover band and composes other classical works. In his spare time, he began reading books about St. Isaac.
Stories of the saint's enslavement and torture by the Native Americans he tried to evangelize resonated with Mr. Newell: "He just kind of hung in there and kept preaching the message."
St. Isaac was mutilated and had his fingers cut off during his time in America. When he escaped and returned to Europe, Pope Urban VIII saw his injuries and declared him a living martyr. St. Isaac chose to return to the New World to continue his ministry, aware that he was courting death.
"He was following in Christ's footsteps," Mr. Newell said, comparing the saint's 1646 celebration of Mass at Lake George to the Last Supper.
"The Discovery of Isaac Jogues" piece was written for piano, strings, flutes and Native American percussion to accompany the Adirondack Repertory Dance Theatre, which Mr. Newell often supplies with music. (The performance at Sacred Heart will be music only.)
Mr. Newell said the composition's first movement uses dark sounds to depict the torture St. Isaac suffered; the middle represents Mass at the lake, which the saint called "Lac du Saint-Sacrement," the Lake of the Blessed Sacrament.
The last movement is a "triumph of spirit.
"It keeps me thinking about the faith," Mr. Newell said of his creation. "It more or less continues and affirms what the truth is for me."[[In-content Ad]]
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