[7] Gates was the music director of the Beloit-Janesville Symphony Orchestra for 34 years (1963–1964, 1966–1999), where he prepared orchestral and orchestral-choral arrangements for annual pops and children's concerts.
His teaching schedule and local church service did not leave him much time to compose, so the score was not complete until 1957.
[4] After having difficulty composing the Christ theme for the Hill Cumorah Pageant, he received a blessing from Harold B. Lee, which told him he would "hear the music in the night."
[2] In 1987, Gates started composing a new score for Orson Scott Card's new script for the Hill Cumorah Pageant.
[12] Milton Barlow commissioned Gates to write the ballet Desert As A Rose for Utah's statehood centennial in 1996.
[13] Gates collaborated with William Auld to write an Esperanto hymn, which premiered at the 76th Universala Kongreso in 1991.
[2] In 1955, Gates won the Max Wald Memorial Fund's first composition competition for his Symphony No.1, written for his doctoral dissertation.
[15] Gates's works have won the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) every year from 1967 to 1989.
[7] In 1997, Gates received a Governor's Commendation from Tommy Thompson for his musical service in southern Wisconsin.
[16] In 2010, the instrumental qualities of Gates's choral arrangements were the subject of a doctoral dissertation by Matthew Thompson at Kansas University.
In fact, Gates's mission occurred seven years after Hinckley's, and concluded after the family he visits in the film had returned home.