Pop icon Carole King was lined up to perform her 1977 song In the Name of Love at the late-afternoon vigil on Thursday, which organisers hoped would pull the media spotlight away from the New England town where 20 first-grade pupils and six educators were killed.
Several Newtown residents, including relatives of the dead, were expected at the vigil spearheaded by the Newtown Foundation, a non-profit group that calls for tougher gun laws.
"As Christians, we follow one who died at the hands of human violence," said the Episcopal cathedral's dean Gary Hall, who noted that 32,000 have died this year in the US in firearm-related incidents.
"We call our elected leaders to find the moral courage and the political will to lead us all into a new, safer era in American history," said Hall in remarks released ahead of the vigil.
"Make us instruments of your peace, and strengthen our hearts and hands and minds - not only to care for the victims and survivors of gun violence, but also to bring about the change that will end the violence caused by guns in the hands of the criminal, the sick, and the cruel."
Twenty-year-old Adam Lanza used a military-style semi-automatic rifle during his shooting spree in the classrooms and hallways of Sandy Hook Elementary School, then shot himself in the head on the morning of December 14, 2012.
He had earlier shot and killed his mother, who owned the guns he used, in her bed as a prelude to the second deadliest mass shooting by a single person in the US after the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 in which 33 died, including the lone gunman.
Newtown's civic leaders have urged reporters to stay away from their picturesque and affluent community two hours' drive from New York to enable it to mourn the victims and comfort each other in peace.
Many news organisations say they will respect the request, while the Newtown Bee newspaper, on its website on Thursday, carried a photo of a sign outside a local church that read: "No media - police take notice."
In a report last month, Connecticut state attorney Stephen Sedensky said Lanza had "significant mental health issues" and an obsession with the Columbine high school massacre in Colorado in 1999 in which 15 died, including the two young gunmen. But he said Lanza's motive was a mystery.
"The evidence clearly shows that the shooter planned his actions, including the taking of his own life, but there is no clear indication why he did so," the report said.
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