Inside the Rehearsal Room:
How the Asheville Senior Chorus Is Bringing Laurel Canyon to Life
There is a moment in every rehearsal when it clicks.
It might be the first time the sopranos and altos lock into the opening chord of “California Dreamin‘” and the room goes suddenly, gloriously full. Or the moment the tenors find the countermelody in “Teach Your Children” and everyone in the room feels it land. Director Chuck Taft knows that moment well. He has been chasing it – and catching it – every Monday night since rehearsals began for Laurel Canyon Echoes: Harmonies from the Hills (1966-1976).
The Asheville Senior Chorus performs on Sunday, May 3rd at 3 PM at OLLI/Reuter Center. But the concert is only half the story. The other half is happening right now, in a room full of people who showed up with a love of music and left, week after week, with something more.
Monday Nights Are Magic
Rehearsals run every Monday at 6:15 PM, and the energy in the room is hard to describe without experiencing it. The program for Laurel Canyon Echoes is ambitious – Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Crosby Stills and Nash, The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, The Mamas and the Papas, The Byrds – songs that defined a decade and have never really left us.
Learning them in four-part harmony is a different experience entirely. “Desperado” becomes something new when twenty voices carry it together. “You’ve Got a Friend” takes on a warmth that the original, as beautiful as it is, can’t quite replicate. Accompanist Eric Fricke keeps the room grounded and moving, note by note, phrase by phrase.
Chuck Taft brings both precision and joy to the process. The goal is never perfection for its own sake – it is connection. Connection between singers, between the music and the people making it, and ultimately between the chorus and the audience that will fill the seats on May 3rd.
The Songs Are Already Living
By the time a concert arrives, these songs are no longer just notes on a page. They are shared experiences. Inside jokes about the tricky key change in “Seven Bridges Road.” The collective exhale when “Blue Bayou” finally settles into its groove. The quiet pride of a section that has spent weeks earning a harmony and finally, unmistakably, owns it.
That is what audiences feel when they sit down for a Asheville Senior Chorus concert. They are not just hearing music. They are receiving something that has been carefully, joyfully built – week by week, Monday by Monday – just for them.
Come Be Part of It
The concert is May 3rd at 3 PM at OLLI/Reuter Center. Bring someone who grew up with these songs. Bring someone who has never heard them. Bring anyone who needs to be reminded what live, human, harmonized music can do to a room.
For the full concert program and details, visit Laurel Canyon Echoes.
We will see you there.
