According to Classic FM, Elgar’s piece is the most popular choice of classical music for funerals. It was also performed at Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh’s 2021 funeral. Performed for a few hundred attendees on Monday night inside the Credit Union of Texas Event Center, it was beautifully serene, even hopeful.
Over the course of the 30-minute ceremony, that feeling of the sun barely peeking through the darkest clouds was perhaps the main emotional takeaway. As a time to reflect on the tragedy from a year ago when a gunman killed eight and injured many more, the evening inevitably carried a somber tone, but in the words of Allen’s mayor, a local pastor and even the song sung by the Allen High School Varsity Men’s Choir, the memories of the fallen will continue to inspire, just as the many candles along the stage continued to burn throughout the event.
“Today marks the day we lost eight precious lives,” Allen Mayor Baine Brooks said during his opening remarks following the first orchestral number. “It is the day that forever changed the shape of many families, and altered the lives of those who were wounded or experienced this event firsthand.”
The following speaker, Mary Beth Hardesty-Crouch, lead pastor of the First United Methodist Church in Allen, echoed the mayor’s notes of remembrance and healing.
“We come together today to remember, to remember where we were when we heard what was happening on that sunny Saturday afternoon,” she said. “We come to remember those whose lives were taken so tragically. Each one leaves behind a void that can not be filled. We come together to remember the fear, the grief, the anger that we felt. We come together today to remember and to give thanks for all the helpers that day.”
The names of the eight Allen victims were listed on screens during the orchestra's performance.
Christopher Durbin
The words to the classic hymn “Amazing Grace,” yet another frequent choice for funerals, offered a similar combination of sorrow buoyed by hope.
“I once was lost, but now am found,” the high school choir sang. “Was blind, but now I see.”
“In Lumine,” an original composition from the Allen Philharmonic was introduced. Commissioned after the attack, the ceremony’s program states that the title means “in light” and “is meant to suggest remembering them [the eight victims] as they lived, remembering their lives in the light of life.”
As “In Lumine” began, the names of the victims, Kyu Song Cho, Cindy Cho, James Cho, Elio Cumana-Rivas, Christian LaCour, Daniela Mendoza, Sofia Mendoza and Aishwarya Thatikonda, were displayed on each of the large screens circling the arena. It was a fitting moment to read the names as the piece, featuring eight different solos representing each person, played. It called to mind that earlier on Monday, a new, permanent memorial was unveiled at the Allen Premium Outlets, near where the shootings occurred that featured eight wind chimes.
The mayor returned to the stage to close the ceremony. Before he led the assembled family members of the victims off of the arena floor, he added a final, solemn wish.
“My hope is that each of you were reminded this evening that you are not alone,” Brooks said. “And as you leave this room, you are still not alone.”
