When it comes to music, what goes around comes around

NORTH CANAAN — It began with a few guitar lessons two or three years ago. At North Canaan Elementary School, the head custodian’s office is across the hall from the music room. One day, Lester Robson watched music teacher David Gaedeke playing the guitar. Gaedeke was finally getting around to learning one of the few instruments he could not play.

“Lester said he always wanted to learn, too,� Gaedeke said. “I decided to offer him lessons, because he does so much for the school. He always goes above and beyond. I only gave him a few lessons. He soaked it up and was off on his own. He has a natural talent.�

The kindness would eventually come full circle.

Robson got into buying guitars, frequenting Route 7 Music in Brookfield. Last fall, he gave Gaedeke information on awards the store was offering through schools.

“It was a $500 store credit that could go to one student, or be divided between two,� Gaedeke said.

He applied on behalf of two students, and was informed the awards would be made at school spring concerts. But a few weeks before the May 13 concert in North Canaan, Gaedeke still did not have an answer.

So he contacted the store.

And  was told his students had indeed won.  Certificates were FedEx-ed overnight, just in time for the concert.

The surprised award winners were fourth-grader Matt Holderman, who has been taking lessons for some time and “has a real passion for it,â€� Gaedeke said; and  Francesca Ghi, a seventh-grader Gaedeke described as having “a lot of musical irons in the fire.â€� She recently began talking guitar lessons and shows real promise, the teacher said.

While the awards will help the students further their musical education, Gaedeke is uplifted by the bigger picture of simple consideration for others, and how it can quickly balloon into greater things.

“It all happened because of Lester,� Gaedeke said, “who is, by the way, teaching me guitar now.�

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less