Kindred Spirits: How Three Choruses and One Unforgettable Afternoon Reminded Us What Matters Most
Some concerts go exactly as planned. Others become something more – something you carry home with you. The Asheville Senior Chorus’s February 28th performance of Kindred Spirits: A Choral Celebration of Companionship was the second kind.
On a Saturday afternoon at the Reuter Center on the UNCA campus, something genuinely rare happened. Three choral communities – the Asheville Senior Chorus, the UNCA University Choral, and the Asheville Singers – came together on one stage to honor a theme that cuts across every generation: the bonds we share with the companions who walk, and wag, beside us through every season of life.
The room was full. The music was beautiful. And by the end of the afternoon, there was hardly a dry eye in the house.
Three Voices, One Heart
What made Kindred Spirits so special wasn’t just the music – it was the collaboration. Bringing together three distinct choral groups, each with its own identity and repertoire, is no small feat. But under the shared vision of honoring companionship in all its forms, the three ensembles found a common language.
The UNCA University Choral brought youthful energy and precision. The Asheville Singers added their signature warmth and depth. And the Asheville Senior Chorus – with decades of life experience woven into every phrase – brought something that can’t be rehearsed: the weight of real love, real loss, and real gratitude for the creatures who have shared our lives.
Together, the three choruses created a program that moved through joy, tenderness, humor, and quiet reverence. The audience didn’t just listen. They remembered.
The Video That Stopped the Room
Perhaps the most powerful moment of the afternoon wasn’t a song at all.
In the weeks leading up to the concert, members of all three choruses were invited to submit photos and videos of their favorite companions – beloved pets, past and present, who had shaped their lives in ways both ordinary and profound. The response was overwhelming.
The result was a tribute video, played during the concert, that wove together these personal glimpses into something unexpectedly moving. A golden retriever asleep in a patch of sunlight. A tabby cat curled on a lap. Dogs caught mid-leap, mid-nap, mid-gaze – looking at their people with that particular kind of devotion that no human relationship quite replicates
If you weren’t there on February 28th, watch it now. It’s the kind of thing that reminds you why community matters – and why we sing.
Why We Do This
The Asheville Senior Chorus exists because music does something that nothing else can. It builds community across differences. It gives voice to feelings that resist words. It creates shared moments that outlast the afternoon.
Kindred Spirits was a perfect expression of that mission. Free admission meant the concert was open to everyone – families, neighbors, animal lovers, lifelong chorus fans, and first-time visitors alike. Donations from generous attendees will help sustain the chorus’s work in the months ahead.
The Reuter Center, as always, provided a warm and welcoming home for the performance. There is something fitting about a lifelong learning center hosting a concert about the love that teaches us, quietly and consistently, how to be better humans.
Thank You
To every member of the Asheville Senior Chorus, the UNCA University Choral, and the Asheville Singers: thank you for your voices, your vulnerability, and your willingness to share something so personal on a public stage.
To everyone who submitted a photo or video for the tribute reel: you made the concert. Those images were the heartbeat of the afternoon.
And to everyone who came out on February 28th: thank you for filling the room, for your generosity, and for reminding us that this community shows up for each other.
Kindred Spirits is over. But the feeling it created – that warm, full-chested sense that we are not alone, that we are surrounded by love in forms both two-legged and four – that stays.
We’ll see you at the next concert.
The Asheville Senior Chorus is an active Community Partner that meets every week as part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at UNC-Asheville. Led by Chuck Taft, they produce harmonious tunes while also building strong bonds and valuing shared moments. Their concerts feature a diverse range of musical styles and periods.
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GET IN TOUCH
- PO Box 8185 Asheville, NC 28814
- info@ashevilleseniorchorus.com
- +1 828 903 4272
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